Freedom of Information Act/Official Secrets Act

Official Secrets Act 1989:

No reports allowed for secret government information. There have been no further reforms to this Act since 1989, possibly because of the increased prominence of the internet, and a wider spread of information. This could have lead towards the Freedom of Information Act (2000). An example: Richard Tomlinson - Former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson was sentenced to a year in prison in 1997 for passing secrets to an Australian publisher. He was released after six months and went to his native New Zealand. In 1998, he was arrested in Paris with David Shayler, but was released because of insufficient evidence. An injunction was placed on Tomlinson preventing him from further breaching the Act.

Freedom of Information Act 2000:

The public are entitled to access information surrounding statistics and salaries. This came about in order to gain more of a transparency - particularly from the government's point of view. From John Major's government in the early 90's, politicians had been losing a lot of face, and been portrayed as sneaky (and very sleazy as well). Labour planned to clean up this opinion with the freedom of information, in a bid to be honest and open with the public - things that are of public interest are available for them to obtain. This of course has backfired with the expenses scandal of 2007 exposing things that were very much in the public interest.

Enforcement -A person who has made a request for information may apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision on whether the request has been dealt with according to the Act. In response, the Information Commissioner may serve a decision notice on the public authority and applicant, setting out any steps that are required for compliance with the Act. The Commissioner also has the power to serve information notices and enforcement notices on public authorities. In certain circumstances, the Information Commissioner may issue a decision or enforcement notice requiring disclosure of information in the public interest. If it feels that the Commissioner has erred, the public authority then has 20 days from receipt of the notice to obtain a signed certificate from a Cabinet Minister overriding the Information Commissioner's notice (Executive override). There is no right of appeal against the Ministerial certificate. All notices may be appealed to the independent Information Tribunal.