Monday, June 04, 2007

For Auld Lang Syne

In a fit of nostalgia, Pangloss feels like posting that the 3rd Scottish Information Commissioner Report has been published (even though Pangloss now does not live in Scotland and tries to avoid FOI like the plague.)

Still, it does seem kinda remarkable though that:

"1082 appeals [have been] received in the two years since the inception of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (including 511 appeals in 2006) – twice as many applications as the Information Commissioner in England and Wales.

By the end of 2006 the Scottish Information Commissioner had completed 781 cases, with 326 decisions covering 350 separate applications. 328 applications were closed without investigation and 103 settled or withdrawn."

Twice as many as in England? Which has 10 times the population? What? Are Scots just naturally nosy? :-) What am I missing?

Also

"65 per cent of appeals came from ordinary members of the public
• 236 decision notices issued by the Commissioner
• The Court of Session has upheld the Commissioner’s decisions in all four of the appeals it has considered so far"

- which is a pretty good showing too.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lynn

FOI up here has been well publicised, there are a number of political activists left ( unlike England that seems to be asleep ) and the Commissioner is well respected.

Don't know if politicians and public servants like it but they are not doing a Westminster and trying to shut it down yet.