Abstract
Richard A. Chapman and Michael Hunt (eds) (2010) Freedom of Information: Local Government and Accountability, Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN: 9780754679776.
This collection of 11 chapters on the impact of various forms of “Freedom of Information” (FoI) legislation on local authorities in some of the countries of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland is both timely and good.
Timely because the current changes under discussion for FoI provision and the dramatic change in our public service tapestry across the United Kingdom suggests that the experience of (roughly) the last ten years will be valuable evidence against which to evaluate the impact of any changes.
Why good? My observation, through reading this and other collections, is that such works are at their best when they originate in the kind of shared research themes, discussions, challenge and iteration that the editors, Chapman and Hunt, describe in their introduction. The benefit of this kind of approach is to be found, in my assessment and in my recommendation to any readers, by reading the lot; they are all interesting and valuable – albeit in different ways.
As a consequence, for this reviewer, there is no point in signalling out specific chapters as worth more time than others; as always with the work of good editors, Chapter 1 summarises and signals (and does not merely list) the topics and themes of other contributors.
The key focus of this book – local government – is well chosen as a classic multi-site research opportunity for developing ideas and analysis of how organisations closely related in form, but differently driven culturally and politically, react to legislative imposition. One weakness in some sections of the book (e.g. Holsen and Worthy on English local government) is the failure to convert a narrative report into simple tables and figures that might better help the reader to get sense of trend change over time. It is noteworthy that the only chapters containing tabular data are those by Dunnion (on Scotland) and Mcdonagh (local government in the Republic).
The impacts of FoI have been profound and politically seismic at the level of UK politics – parliamentary expenses may be trivial in cash volume terms – and have brought home to even the most elevated of elected representatives how important transparency is in some matters. What is less clear, and although touched on is not fully discussed here, is whether members of national legislatures (in Westminster, Edinburgh, and potentially Cardiff and Belfast) have thought about the broader implications of this in relation to other public bodies and the dynamic changes in train for them. The signs are not encouraging. As the government in Scotland has been reviewing legislation it has decided that the creation of “arm’s length” organisations by councils across Scotland will fall outside the scope of legislation, and the implications of healthcare reform in England have yet to determine to what extent residents in various health areas will be able to establish verifiable data and information on their healthcare providers.
The consequences of FoI precedents for local authorities are reasonably clear; they are all common entities subject to the same legal interpretations (and in the main inclined to follow them – although sometimes grudgingly). We do not yet know the varying form of entities that will provide healthcare to the 50 million or so people who live in England. Fruitful research material for a future seminar and publication by a similar group of authors?