FOI Review Issue No. 58
 

Some Reflections on FoI's Early Years

John Cain
 
This article covers the first twelve years in which the Victorian FoI act, which the author introduced as Premier, has been operating. The article assesses how the legislation has been received and handled by both government and members of the public through some of the issues raised in the review of the Commonwealth  FoI Act by the Law Reform Commission. The apprehension that many of the bureaucrats had at the time of introduction of the Act is discussed due to the fact that the policy of governments at the time was steeped in the idea that as much information as possible should be kept from the public eye.  The paper analyses the effectiveness of the Act by determining who the users of the FoI Act are and what this says about the effectiveness, whether public participation in government has increased and whether the Act has had an impact on the openness of government.  The author concludes  that despite the widespread concern from within the government ranks, access to public information from citizens about their personal records has worked well and been accepted both by the bureaucrats servicing the public enquiries, as well as the thousands of people making such enquiries.
 
 

Freedom of Information developments in Europe

Mauve McDonagh

This article outlines recent FOI developments in Great Britain , Ireland and the Eurpoean Union. In summary, the author notes that at a national level, the two European countries whose legal regimes have most strongly supported government secrecy (Great Britain and Ireland) appear to be moving slowly towards more open government. Similarly, the European Union. is leaning more favourably toward open government decision making processes.
 

FOI in New South Wales: the continuing saga

Bruce Smith

This article examines certain issues raised in the letter to the Editor from the NSW Deputy Ombudsman. Specifically, Smith challenges the Ombudsmans proposal to target annual FOI summaries and reporting requirements, given the number of previous articles concerning this subject area that the author has already published.The second half of the article contains information regarding the most recent survey of reporting requirements undertaken by the author. In brief three problems were revealed with the Annual Reports: no processing details were supplied, a single description was used (eg 90% of applications were dealt with in 21 days) , or tables were used which were not uniform between agencies. The author provides suggestions as to a list of projests that he believes would be more valuable for the Deputy Ombudsman to undertake.
 
 

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