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Freedom Of Information:
Could You Cope?
A High-Level Checklist
Many countries around the world are adopting Access to
Information, or Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation. Yet past experience
has shown that the Public Sector often struggles to achieve compliance
with the provisions of such laws. Would your organisation be ready for
such a change? This checklist has been prepared to help you decide how
prepared you are.
- Have you assigned functional responsibility for managing FOI?
- Is every member of staff aware of their responsibilities to create
and manage records and documents?
- Have staff been introduced to the basic principles of FOI and its
affect on the way they work?
- Have adequate resources been assigned to:
- manage records and documents;
- develop public access tools;
- monitor the request process;
- identify/review appropriate records; and
- provide copies when necessary to the requestor?
- Have you provided the public with a good overview of the types of
information you create and hold?
- Do you have defined processes and assigned responsibilities for:
- registering receipt of requests;
- identifying appropriate documents and records;
- reviewing the material;
- approving/denying release of the material, either
completely or partially; and
- providing access to the material in appropriate
formats?
- Are you managing your documents and records in an effective manner
in order to support rapid responses to requests?
- Do you have an internal appeal mechanism in place to respond to dissatisfied
requestors?
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