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Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Response to Justice Committee Review into FOI Act 2000. Question Does the Freedom of Information Act work effectively? Response No, the fact that an individual is able to request any information from an organisation has resulted in companies compiling spread sheets (Examples below) and demanding that these are completed by the organisation under FOI. In all cases, the information being requested is held in numerous places and has to be pulled together and extracted in order to respond to the request. This feels as though we are creating information to respond to the request rather than providing information already held. The act should be more heavily focussed on providing copies of information already created/compiled rather than extraction and collation of information to respond to each request. It would also be of particular use to provide clear guidance to public authorities on exactly how far an organisation is required to go in relation to creating new documents from information held in relation to FOI requests. E-health Media, Netsi Plus, Kable Direct:

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What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Freedom of Information Act?

The FOIA does not work effectively for an organisation where it is expected to spend up to 18 hours responding to each request, particularly when up to 300 requests are received per year. This is a massive strain on resources. Not being able to confirm the identity of the individual prohibits the ability to correctly apply the public interest test. Weakness 1. Cannot confirm the identity of the person requesting the information, nor what they wish to do with the information. An organisation would like to know where its information is going and who has access to it, rather than find out from the local news or national news. Difficult to collate similar requests from the same person as you are unable to confirm the identity of the requestor. (Attached 5 emails). 2. Inability to charge for requests take into account the resources and effort an organisation has to put in to

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process requests for information. The ability to charge for request for information would prevent one individual emailing over 400 organisations at the same time (Round Robins) as well as ensuring individuals who genuinely want information are able to obtain it 3. Used to by-pass other processes (e.g. legal procedures, complaints, courts, staff disciplinary, etc.). Specifically there have been instances of private investigators requesting information from NHS organisations about patients who have died without a next of kin and requests from Police in relation to criminal investigations. 4. Not being able to include time taken to redact and copy information when assessing whether a request will exceed the appropriate limit (18 hours) e.g. copies of Trust board meeting minutes and all supporting papers 12 months 25 papers each meeting (Request 207) 5. Used by journalists and MPs to produce negative stories about organisations. 6. Information provided to requesters is often taken out of context in order to make headlines in papers. Strengths It does holds the organisation to account Makes an organisation respond to requests for information when in the past Enables individuals to know how an organisation operates No, the act is being regularly used by private companies to obtain information about competitors, to tout for business, to contact organisations for direct marketing, used by journalists to find newsworthy stories, used by MPs to obtain information to support election campaigns. Example request: How many complaints has your organisation received from either your employees or members of the public about haunted buildings, ghosts or other paranormal phenomena in your premises or in buildings managed by you? Please break down complaints by year. 1. What action was taken to address these complaints? 2. How much did this action cost. Please provide the amount spent for each action. February 2012

Is the Freedom of Information Act operating in the way that it was intended to?