But the newspaper said the Government would defend the right to use the ministerial veto to ensure that the executive has the “final say as to whether information should be released under the Act”.
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Public services delivered by charities should be subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, but the act’s requirements should not be extended to charities as a whole, according to a report to the Cabinet Office today.
It has been known that Hancock supports the Act in its present form since Cabinet Office sources told the Times in December that he didn’t plan on making any changes.
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson, who set up a cross-party committee to examine the FOI, said: “I’m delighted that Matthew Hancock has decided the FOIA is “working well”.
Its report said FoI had helped “change the culture of the public sector”. We will spread transparency throughout public services, making sure all public bodies routinely publish details of senior pay and perks.
The Government said introducing routine fees for putting in requests would be “inappropriate” after an independent review found the legislation was “generally working well”.
He also called upon the government to disclose the full cost of running the FoI commission – which ultimately maintained the status quo despite months of expensive deliberations.
“After all, taxpayers should know if their money is funding a company vehicle or a big pay-off”. We do not want to impose an unnecessary burden on either public authorities or small businesses, so we think there should be a threshold from which these obligations commence.
“We consider that imposing this obligation on existing contracts would create additional costs and uncertainty for the contracting parties who would not have been aware of these obligations when the terms of the contract were agreed, and therefore the obligation should apply prospectively only to contracts signed after the enabling legislation comes into force”.
The move represents a victory for the HandsOffFoi campaign launched by the Society of Editors and backed by HoldtheFrontPage and Press Gazette.
The human rights organisation Reprieve – which has previously used FOI to uncover information relating to United Kingdom involvement in covert drone strikes, and the CIA’s torture programme – had expressed concern that any watering down of the Act would restrict the public’s ability to hold the government accountable for human rights abuses.
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Information law expert Kathryn Wynn of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that public bodies are sometimes overburdened by vexatious or repeated requests for information.
