What are the implications of the UK Freedom of Information Act for practice in records management? Dr Elizabeth Shepherd Dr Alice Stevenson Department of Information Studies University College London

UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 Code of Practice on Records Management “Freedom of information legislation is only as good as the quality of the records and other information to which it provides access. Such rights are of little use if reliable records are not created in the first place, if they cannot be found when needed or if the arrangements for their eventual destruction or transfer to an archives service are inadequate.”

What has been the impact of the FOIA on records management in public authorities, especially local government, in the UK? 1.How well records management services prepared for and coped with the first three years of FOI implementation 2.What contribution records management services make to the ability of public authorities to comply with the FOI Act 3.How the user experience of FOI is affected by the management of records 4.What the implications are of FOI so far for good practice in records management.

Background Amos et al FOI 2000 and local government in 2007: The experience of local authorities in England. London: Constitution Unit, UCL.

Research process Data collection: 22 semi-structured interviews with officers responsible for FOI and/or records management in 19 local authorities in London and south east of England (county, unitary, city and London borough) Data analysis using NVIVO 7

Why improve records management? Accommodation crises Data security, data losses FOI Act? Influence of Code of Practice? Visibility, profile, perceptions

Rhetoric or practice? –“It’s more high profile, but the actual way we do things hasn’t changed” –“… people realize there’s a need, but it’s just there’s never enough time or money to actually get good records management.”

Nature of requests: information or records “when I look at the type of requests that come in, a marvelous all singing all dancing records management system wouldn’t necessarily satisfy us being able to find those answers…. FOI requests …, tend to be to do with stuff that is actually active now or within the last financial and that … stuff … hasn’t even got to the stage where it’s in a records management sphere.” “Records management wouldn’t really come into quite a lot of the requests that we see.”

Successful compliance “I think we are actually pretty alright at dealing with this stuff. We don’t seem to have any major issues despite the fact that things are a bit loose” “I don’t believe we have ever not found it, despite our not having a very structured records management system.”

An increasingly important role for RM? “The other thing, in addition to what appears to be a broad increase in the number of requests, … the complexity has increased… They are a lot more litigious if they receive a refusal notice, they are more likely to challenge and appeal a refusal notice and the actual requests are a lot more probing, a lot more detailed as well. “

‘Open access, empty archives’ “We’ve got senior managers who just don’t write anything down any more. Without any doubt they have learnt that if they put something in an that will come back to haunt them, so it’s a lot more face-to-face, things jotted down in their own jotter which you never know if it’s held or not. There is definitely this recognition that if you put on anything else on the system you ostensibly lose ownership of that.”

Dr Elizabeth Shepherd /foi-impact/ What are the implications of the UK Freedom of Information Act for practice in records management?