Freedom of Information Act 2000

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, I declare an interest in this subject as the executive director of the Telegraph Media Group. It is worth remembering the opening words of the 1997 White Paper on freedom of information, which began thus:

“Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in governance and defective decision-making. The perception of excessive secrecy has become a corrosive influence in the decline of public confidence in government”.

Fifteen years on, such sentiments remain as forceful as ever. That FOI has perhaps not lived up to all the expectation is perhaps because, in my view, the 2000 Act did not go far enough. The Government’s transparency agenda, including the increase in scope of that Act, is a welcome step to remedying some of its initial deficiencies. I wish it went further now, to include all contractors performing public functions on behalf of public authorities—an extension all the more vital because of the contracting-out provisions of the Localism Act and the health service reforms currently before this House. Will the Minister look at that?

There are concerns—eloquently expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong—that FOI has had a negative impact on government decision-making by increasing the practice of what is termed sofa government, with damaging consequences for government record-keeping. As a historian, I am only too well aware that a comprehensive and accessible archive of government decision-making is a precious legacy to future generations. However, I believe that those concerns are misplaced. The last inquiry that looked into them—the review of the 30-year rule led by Mr Paul Dacre, working with the distinguished historian Sir David Cannadine—concluded that:

“We accept that ‘sofa government’ may have occurred at certain times in twentieth-century British history– indeed, long before FOI and the introduction of the 30 year rule; but we believe that it is more likely to be a reflection of leadership style and political circumstances than to be motivated by any concern regarding the timing of the future disclosure of official documents”.

For those interested in maintaining a comprehensive record of the deeds and doings of government, which is available to the public under FOI or the 30-year rule, there are far greater concerns than FOI, of which the most vital is the vulnerability of digital records. Most business is now recorded digitally. These records are subject to rapid obsolescence, with often a natural life of only five years. Already the oldest digital government records from the early 1990s are lost for ever, because appropriate software is no longer available or storage media is corrupted.

There is also the problem of digital information overload, with, in the words of the 30-year review,

“vast amounts of ephemeral information paralysing the system”.

Although digital technology may assist in making government more open, it has the paradoxical effect of making a permanent archival record far more difficult to establish, because documents disappear into digital landfill. Those two problems present a huge issue for the long-term maintenance of government records. That is a deeply worrying problem to tackle. It would help to hear from the Minister about what the Government are doing to ensure that electronic record capture is an integral part of government IT infrastructure—the key point for all of us who are concerned about the maintenance of government records.