Spat between Chief Minister and Dr Glover

[The Voice of Reason]

10 hours ago, Apple said:

Contradictory surely. An open administration would not need FOI to try and drag information out of them.

 

 

Not contradictory at all. The Government could not possibly publicly provide every statistic generated by their operations, or in the form one might like. This would be overwhelming and unnecessary.

The FOI is a mechanism to provide additional information , not in the public domain as and when requested. The name “Freedom of Information” I agree may imply it is being dragged out, when in the majority of cases there is nothing sinister and nothing to hide.

And yes there are cases where some information must, by its nature, remain confidential.

[doc.fixit]

Why? Are you implying that the government are more able to assimilate the information than the public?

There are many more intelligent folk outside politics than in it.

Edited November 6, 2020 by doc.fixit
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[quilp]

40 minutes ago, doc.fixit said:

Why? Are you implying that the government are more able to assimilate the information more ably than the public?

There are many more intelligent folk outside politics than in it.

He is implying just that. I wonder which past or present politico the Voice of Reason is? The whole post smacks of an old-school aloof and superior attitude.

[Rhumsaa]

1 hour ago, The Voice of Reason said:

The FOI is a mechanism to provide additional information , not in the public domain as and when requested. The name “Freedom of Information” I agree may imply it is being dragged out, when in the majority of cases there is nothing sinister and nothing to hide.

In principal I agree with you, however in practice I suspect most FOI requests are treated as inconveniences and the people requesting them as troublemakers

[doc.fixit]

Trouble being defined as questioning poor decisions?

[wrighty]

2 hours ago, Rhumsaa said:

In principal I agree with you, however in practice I suspect most FOI requests are treated as inconveniences and the people requesting them as troublemakers

Sometimes they are.

The few FOI requests I've been asked about have been poorly worded, seemingly daft questions that indicate very little understanding of the subject matter on the part of the questioner.  

[Rhumsaa]

1 hour ago, doc.fixit said:

Trouble being defined as questioning poor decisions?

6 of 1 and half a dozen of the other?

There will be people who are asking questions to be cantankerous but I suspect that as much energy is expended in finding out who's asked and why rather than just playing questions with a straight bat

[Rhumsaa]

19 minutes ago, wrighty said:

Sometimes they are.

The few FOI requests I've been asked about have been poorly worded, seemingly daft questions that indicate very little understanding of the subject matter on the part of the questioner.  

how can you have full understanding unless you ask questions and get more information?

but then you're moving towards very specific examples rather than generalisations so the discussion point becomes fuzzy

[wrighty]

9 minutes ago, Rhumsaa said:

how can you have full understanding unless you ask questions and get more information?

but then you're moving towards very specific examples rather than generalisations so the discussion point becomes fuzzy

Wikipedia?  I wouldn't expect government or the civil service to have to waste time answering FOI requests where information was already in the public domain.  Similarly, I don't think it's the job of government or the civil service to interpret FOI questions to work out what the questioner probably meant to ask, if they've actually asked something stupid.  I don't really want to spell out exactly what I was once asked to do with hip replacements, but the straightforward, correct answer was 'all of them', because it was clear the questioner didn't understand the concepts they were asking about.  Should I have responded 'All of them, but if you really meant to ask about x, the answer is y, however if you didn't mean that...'

[Rhumsaa]

1 minute ago, wrighty said:

Wikipedia?  I wouldn't expect government or the civil service to have to waste time answering FOI requests where information was already in the public domain.  Similarly, I don't think it's the job of government or the civil service to interpret FOI questions to work out what the questioner probably meant to ask, if they've actually asked something stupid.  I don't really want to spell out exactly what I was once asked to do with hip replacements, but the straightforward, correct answer was 'all of them', because it was clear the questioner didn't understand the concepts they were asking about.  Should I have responded 'All of them, but if you really meant to ask about x, the answer is y, however if you didn't mean that...'

Like I said, you're going down the very specific rabbit hole which is unhelpful when talking about a broad system

Equally, how I would like an FOI request to go (and have experienced in one case) is where the question asked is not worded very well a conversation is had with the questioner to ascertain what they're after and request it be re-worded to assist.

Now the person asking might choose not to alter the question but that would hopefully be an isolated case.

With regards to things that are public domain already - the IOM Government website is utterly terrible and a pain to use. Pointing people in the direction of public domain information is an easy win for IOMG as they can evidence their transparency but it's also a learning opportunity to see if there's a better way to make that information more accessible or educate people on how to obtain it.

People not being of a high enough knowledge or intelligence base to ask the "right" questions shouldn't mean they are disenfranchised from asking the questions they do have 

[Roger Mexico]

3 hours ago, Rhumsaa said:

In principal I agree with you, however in practice I suspect most FOI requests are treated as inconveniences and the people requesting them as troublemakers

I'm sure you're both right - and the response does seem to vary between (and within) Departments.  A lot of the requests are badly thought-through and badly written but some replies try to find out what the requester really wants to know, while others are as unhelpful as possible.

How Departments deal with FoI requests (and Tynwald questions - especially written ones) is actually a good way of assessing their efficiency.  Those who are quick and helpful and have a good grasp of the data they work with are the better-run ones.

[wrighty]

12 minutes ago, Rhumsaa said:

Equally, how I would like an FOI request to go (and have experienced in one case) is where the question asked is not worded very well a conversation is had with the questioner to ascertain what they're after and request it be re-worded to assist.

I agree with that.  In my case though I'm usually 3 or 4 rungs down the ladder of people passing the question on (questioner to government to minister to CEO to manager to me) that I don't really have the opportunity to make that call, or even know who's asking the question to be able to assist them.

[Rhumsaa]

1 minute ago, Roger Mexico said:

I'm sure you're both right - and the response does seem to vary between (and within) Departments.  A lot of the requests are badly thought-through and badly written but some replies try to find out what the requester really wants to know, while others are as unhelpful as possible.

Yes! I was trying to get to this but you have put it across far more eloquently than I was managing. Thank you.

1 minute ago, wrighty said:

I agree with that.  In my case though I'm usually 3 or 4 rungs down the ladder of people passing the question on (questioner to government to minister to CEO to manager to me) that I don't really have the opportunity to make that call, or even know who's asking the question to be able to assist them.

Which I would imagine in your department is more difficult as even with the most helpful and reasonable FOI co-ordinator going the knowledge gap between them and the specialists that the umbrella of that department go down to makes a centralised conversation very difficult. It's all back to communication and layers.

5 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

How Departments deal with FoI requests (and Tynwald questions - especially written ones) is actually a good way of assessing their efficiency.  Those who are quick and helpful and have a good grasp of the data they work with are the better-run ones.

Efficiency and I'd also add openness.

Not something I have had direct involvement in but I do keep an eye on is all the marina FOI's, the differences in response to effectively the same queries across multiple departments is as telling about the departments in itself than the actual information received.

[Andy Onchan]

1 hour ago, wrighty said:

Wikipedia?  I wouldn't expect government or the civil service to have to waste time answering FOI requests where information was already in the public domain.  Similarly, I don't think it's the job of government or the civil service to interpret FOI questions to work out what the questioner probably meant to ask, if they've actually asked something stupid.  I don't really want to spell out exactly what I was once asked to do with hip replacements, but the straightforward, correct answer was 'all of them', because it was clear the questioner didn't understand the concepts they were asking about.  Should I have responded 'All of them, but if you really meant to ask about x, the answer is y, however if you didn't mean that...'

In broad terms IOMG doesn't help itself with it's online presence. In this day and age a governments online presence should be the main gateway to information on it's activities and services provided.

Finding information online about even the most mundane things can be friggin' hard work. We're not talking 'secret' stuff here just basic information and processes. The website is a mess and needs simplifying. 

How the heck IOM gets to be the 5th most likely country to step foot again on the moon whilst it can't even inform it's own inhabitants on how and where to find stuff is beyond me.

[Two-lane]

1 hour ago, Rhumsaa said:

Not something I have had direct involvement in but I do keep an eye on is all the marina FOI's,

Early this year I made an FoI request for a copy of the "viable" plan that had been submitted. I got a response that said that, naturally,  I could not have a copy for the usual reasons - commercial confidentiality etc.

But the FoI response has not appeared in their on-line list.