Talk:Freedom of information in the United Kingdom

Untitled
Either this page should be actually about general freedom of information in the Uk or it should be amalgamated with the article Freedom of Information Act 2000 this one is clearer on some things but is incomplete therefore this would make more sense Freedom of Information Act 2000


 * There is an important difference; FoIA 2000 covers ~95% of affected bodies, but for the other 5% FoI(S)A 2002 is equally significant - FoIA 2000 is irrelevant for these. If there is a general overview article, here would be better than under the individual 2000 Act article. Shimgray | talk | 14:19, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

This is confusing, and I'm not sure it's very accurate. For example, I'm not sure there's any evidence it was any delay in introducing FOISA that led the Blair government to delay implementation of the UK Act - as far as I remember, it was widely held that the government and civil service were simply unprepared. In fact, it implies that FOISA was introduced to plug a gap in the UK Act - but of course in theory it would have been open to the Scottish Parliament not to introduce an FOI act at all - it's a devolved issue. My proposals would be: the articles on the two separate Acts should stay; this should refer only to FOI at the UK level (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and a separate article should cover FOI in Scotland. Also, these should be separately listed in the overall Freedom of Information Legislation article. If I get time, I'll try to do this - unless anyone disagrees - but only if I get time... --BenPlouviez 10:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the page should stay as a general guide to Freedom of Information in the UK. I have added a reference to the Environmental Information Regulations.

John Cross (talk) 10:30, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. I propose to collapse the article down to a few paragraphs, essentially pointing the reader to articles where the subjects are discussed in more depth.  There is little point in repeating content. Millstream3 (talk) 10:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree too. How far have you got ? Happy to help as I have worked more or less full time in FOI since 2005. It's also full of errors. Eggthang (talk) 19:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

WhatDoTheyKnow.com
This (new) website allows users to request information under EIR and under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (using an online form). I was going to add a link to this page but as I has spent some of my spare time as a volunteer I thought I had better ask first bearing in mind COI.

Request edit

John Cross (talk) 11:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The low popularity of the site in question (e.g. Alexa ranking over 1,100,000) leads me to believe that Wikipedia should not, at this time, be giving it publicity. S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 19:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Checking today (16 December 2008) shows Alexa putting it at 496,345. Is this substantial enough? It's already at the bottom of the article in any case. It might make sense for it to come under something wider about the FoI/government transparency 'movement' in the UK - e.g. the various mySociety websites, FoI campaigners etc. (78.86.173.118 (talk) 11:55, 16 December 2008 (UTC))
 * We really need some demonstration of notability to justify inclusion of such links. Wikipedia is not a web directory. For more, see External links guidelines.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 15:31, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Just an update. I think it is worth noting that about 8.5% of all UK FOI requests are now made through WhatDoTheyKnow.com, the figure rises to about 19% for requests to the Home Office. . The number is likely to rise rather than fall as the site has not been around all that long. John Cross (talk) 20:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

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