The Freedom of Information Act

Well, we interviewed Maurice Frankel. He's an extraordinary man. Pretty much dedicated the last 30 years of his life to the Freedom of Information Act.

It gives us the same rights of access to Government information that the Americans have had for half a century and the Swedes have had for a couple of centuries - tells you something of the mindset we're up against in the UK.

Labour has had the act on it's last 6 or 7 manifestos. Some cynics would say that's a clear indication of manifesto promises versus intent. Labour would counter they weren't voted into a position to carry out it's manifesto promises on all of those occasions. However, they got the juice in '97 and passed the Act in 2000 on the basis of a 2005 introduction (handy that - bridging a general election) on the basis that it would take time for government departments and local councils to prepare.

And here's the rub. Having lived with the Act for the last couple of years they'd decided a couple of amendments are needed (you just know where this is going dontcha ?).

1) Gov't may refuse a request that costs more than £450 to process (if requested of an individual, £600 for a gov. department).

2) You can't exceed the cost limit in requests to one department in a three month period.

That combination is going to put some serious restrictions on access to the media and perhaps more importantly, MPs - who've been reduced to making FOI requests because of the paltry state of affairs in answers to Parliamentary and written questions.

Tomorrow, the man who's done more for democracy than.... well, pretty much everybody.

Curiously, Maurice hasn't been on any honours list - presumably not funded well enough. So Donate now (you might as well, it's tax-free and your hard-earned cash'll end up in Gov't coffers anyway)