The impact of the UK Freedom of Information Act on records management

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The impact of the UK Freedom of Information Act
on records management

• Dr Elizabeth Shepherd
• Department of Information Studies, University
  College London

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UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000

• fully into force in January 2005
• most important UK legislation to include records
  management guidance for all public authorities
• know what information they hold deal within 20
  days with FOI requests disseminate information
  through a publication scheme

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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.

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Research project

• Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research
  Council for a year, 2008-09
• What has been the impact of the FOIA on records
  management in public authorities, especially
  local government, in the UK?
• three perspectives records managers, FOI policy
  managers, FOI requestors and user communities

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Research objectives

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.

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Research method

• Data collection 22 semi-structured interviews
  with 27 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 collection a focus group and 11 interviews
  with requestors
• Data analysis NVIVO 7

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(No Transcript)
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Government policy context

• Modernising Government 1999
• e-government target of all government services
  available electronically by 2005
• Local Government Act 1999 community engagement
• Audit Commission review of e-government
  implementation in England 2002

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Literature review issues

• sustainability of e-government agenda physical
  (people, finance and technical infrastructure)
  non-physical resources (skill, plans and
  strategies)
• over-emphasis on front-end systems (eg website)
• It is easy to create a records management
  policyIt is far harder to convince staff that
  they should cease filing their information
  locally and managing it according to their own
  ways and should embrace new, shared ways of
  working

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Background
Amos et al. 2008. FOI 2000 and local government
in 2007 The experience of local authorities in
England. London Constitution Unit, UCL.
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Background
Amos et al. 2008. FOI 2000 and local government
in 2007 The experience of local authorities in
England. London Constitution Unit, UCL.
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Interpreting the impact

• Its more high profile, but the actual way we do
  things hasnt changed
• Its probably made awareness of RM. You go round
  and people realize theres a need, but its just
  theres never enough time or money to actually
  get good RM in lots of teams.
• AS So there hasnt been much change in RM as a
  result of FOI in this council?
• X There has been a change in so far as we have
  brought in training and raised awareness
• I mean whats changed is the intention to
  address that I think and to do so on a corporate
  basis

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Coping with FOI

• We havent had, or at least to my knowledge we
  havent had something which is dependent upon
  version control. It only needs one or two people
  who understand the FOI game probably to cause
  havoc and mayhem. Luckily we havent actually
  encountered that with journalists they will take
  what theyre given because theyve got a copy
  deadline to produce some article.
• At the moment we are relying a lot on trust and
  people say oh I wrote this, it is the only
  version, which we provide and send out, and we
  just dont have the resources to call their bluff
  on it.

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Coping with FOI

• My guess is that the quality of what we are
  providing we might answer a request but the
  quality of what we are providing on the whole is
  not good because of RM. If we had better RM the
  quality would be better because you will be sure
  the documents you are providing will be the
  latest one.

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An increasingly important role for RM?

• The other thing, in addition to what appears to
  be a broad increase in the number of requests,
  however they are logged, the complexity has
  increased a lot more detailed as well.

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Knowledge Management

• a lot is not stored in a records management
  document manager. It is still stored on servers
  that are unique to each directorate or unit or
  service so we have to chase humans to get access
  to the information.

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Complexity of the Context

• Relative position of RM and FOI in the
  organisation
• Roles and responsibilities electronic vs paper
• Departmental perceptions of RM and FOI
• E-government and technology
• Data security
• Organisation of employment
• Space/Accommodation
• Business efficiency

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The impact of the UK Freedom of Information Act
on records management

• Dr Elizabeth Shepherd
• (e.shepherd_at_ucl.ac.uk)
• Dr Alice Stevenson
• http//www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/icarus/f
  oi-impact/