Another Bad Idea

[bob]

26 minutes ago, b4mbi said:

Treasury is not a public authority. 

The IOM Government disagrees.  The Treasury is listed as a public authority at Schedule 1 of the FOI Act.

[Kopek]

Open and accountable Government. What's wrong with that?

[b4mbi]

.

  

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by b4mbi

[Roger Mexico]

14 minutes ago, b4mbi said:

Must have been updated then, from original act

Indeed it has.  Google brings up the original version, but as I said, it was always intended for a whole long list of various sorts of authorities to be added as they became ready to respond to requests over the next few years.  Here is the latest version:

https://legislation.gov.im/cms/images/LEGISLATION/PRINCIPAL/2015/2015-0008/FreedomofInformationAct2015_16.pdf#page=43

which lists not 2 but 36 authorities - and the last of them is "A local authority" which means another 21.

[Two-lane]

I have two questions:

a) How many other countries have an FoI system

2) How do they handle FoI requests

Answers containing footnotes will be forwarded to the IoM FoI Empire Leader.

The others will be forwarded to Stu Peters who will be interested to know how many countries charge £250 or more for a request.

[Gizo]

5 hours ago, Stu Peters said:

The concept of the FOI system is fine, in principle. Their very existence makes people accountable and think twice.

However, they are being used primarily by people who have worn out their net curtains. Malcontents who want to put it to 'the man'. Maybe 5% of them (from what I'm aware of) are reasonable. Given the manpower taken up by them I'd levy a fee of £250 each.

Things were simpler under Mr Churchill. Nowadays there'd be a slew of FOI requests to see which beaches, who would be doing the fighting and whether a consultation had been carried out beforehand, by whom at what cost and was the job put out to tender. So I think I agree with b4mbi.

Amazing what a few shekels does to start pissing out from the tent. 

[Passing Time]

2 hours ago, Kopek said:

Open and accountable Government. What's wrong with that?

You're new here aren't you...

[Non-Believer]

1 hour ago, Two-lane said:

I have two questions:

a) How many other countries have an FoI system

2) How do they handle FoI requests

Answers containing footnotes will be forwarded to the IoM FoI Empire Leader.

The others will be forwarded to Stu Peters who will be interested to know how many countries charge £250 or more for a request.

I would charge him £250 for the supply and forwarding in the first instance. 

[Fred the shred]

Can you imagine the amount of inane questions that would be asked ?    There would have to be a team of people specifically employed to deal with the FOI s.   I bet there are many questions asked now that could have been answered by looking up facts and figures on Government websites but people are just too idle to go down this path of course Tim Glover did have a point when he said in Tynwald yesterday that Government websites in general were a nightmare to navigate.   People come on FB all the time asking what time do B&Q close tonight ?   What time is the last bus from Ramsey to Douglas ?  and similar posts all the time instead of looking the information up .  There are too many people with too much time on their hands and use it to annoy others with stupid questions.   Of course this smacks of Chris Thomas to a T as he is definitely one of them.

[Kopek]

The possibility of an FoI request has been in place for some years now, this should have meant that the info that could be required should have been kept in a manner that could be easily accessed, so the argument of the Depts that it requires in depth research should not now apply and Stu P's argument of the time it takes up at the Dept is fatuous.

Why hide the info so deeply that it takes time to recover it?

This has to be question for the upcoming Requesition Meetings in the near future???

[Stu Peters]

19 hours ago, Kopek said:

The possibility of an FoI request has been in place for some years now, this should have meant that the info that could be required should have been kept in a manner that could be easily accessed, so the argument of the Depts that it requires in depth research should not now apply and Stu P's argument of the time it takes up at the Dept is fatuous.

Why hide the info so deeply that it takes time to recover it?

This has to be question for the upcoming Requesition Meetings in the near future???

In some cases the information is readily to hand, but in others I don't think it's that easy - just based on some of the 'anonymised' requests that I see as a DOI member. Questions in multiple parts going back sometimes many years. Someone has to find the information, collate it, someone else has to check that it's not sensitive, etc. So one FOI can tie up a number of staff for hours or days - and is (along with all the other bureaucratic processes we all insist on) probably one of the reasons we have such a bloated public sector. I have no problem with appropriate transparency, but some people use them as a perverse hobby with no regard to the cost or consequences. If I had a sufficient grievance £250 (or any other reasonable amount) wouldn't stop me submitting a request, but it might stop some of the more frivolous applicants.

[Two-lane]

58 minutes ago, Stu Peters said:

If I had a sufficient grievance £250 (or any other reasonable amount) wouldn't stop me submitting a request

You think that money is the solution.

How much are you paid?

How does your salary compare to the average man-in-street?

How much do you pay for parking?

How much do other countries charge for FoI requests?

Many other countries have FoI systems.

If they have this problem, how do they solve it?

If they do not have this problem, why not?

For £71,000 per year I expect a lot more from you, rather than for you to blurt out the first thing that comes into you mind.

[Dirty Buggane]

Well they seem to doing bugger all else, so might as well have them doing something. Every thing that needs doing is put out to other firms to cost and plan,  they then decide which quote/design they like the look of (the dearest, the one who is their darling at the moment) then apply for funding without checking, the bugbears, design faults, under priced. What are these highly qualified  engineers doing for their money. Remember they also are not noted for knowing what qualifying degrees they actually posses and whether it bears any use in what they are employed for. Some one who bears a degree in aqueduct building might not be a wizz at building roundabouts thoe seeing ours I cannot see any of them holding that title. Just use the one they have when you come off a 6 lane motorway, I know its only three B roads and a give way sign and a paintef spot in the middle would do but how else can we justify our exorbitant costs and wages. Besides some bearded clown might want to run bendy buses on here so will look good. Time for another Hobnob one think's.  

[Derek Flint]

On 12/15/2023 at 10:38 AM, Stu Peters said:

The concept of the FOI system is fine, in principle. Their very existence makes people accountable and think twice.

However, they are being used primarily by people who have worn out their net curtains. Malcontents who want to put it to 'the man'. Maybe 5% of them (from what I'm aware of) are reasonable. Given the manpower taken up by them I'd levy a fee of £250 each.

Things were simpler under Mr Churchill. Nowadays there'd be a slew of FOI requests to see which beaches, who would be doing the fighting and whether a consultation had been carried out beforehand, by whom at what cost and was the job put out to tender. So I think I agree with b4mbi.

All clearly exempt under National Security.

The running of a state owned shipping monopoly should be subject to FOI scrutiny. It can't even be claimed to be commercially sensitive information as there is no competition.

I suspect the issue is that it would likely have been £100m cheaper if they'd just let the deal with the privately owned Packet run out, and in the meantime have built the Manxman and sourced another couple of boats like the Arrow or Ben. 

It's the one question they don't want to answer...

[Happier diner]

On 12/15/2023 at 6:47 PM, Kopek said:

The possibility of an FoI request has been in place for some years now, this should have meant that the info that could be required should have been kept in a manner that could be easily accessed, so the argument of the Depts that it requires in depth research should not now apply and Stu P's argument of the time it takes up at the Dept is fatuous.

Why hide the info so deeply that it takes time to recover it?

This has to be question for the upcoming Requesition Meetings in the near future???

How would you know what information 'might' be required? I think you have missed or misunderstood the process. 

The government have a legal obligation to provide any/ all information that they hold and do not have a valid reason to not have to disclose it. If they only kept and disclosed information that they thought 'might' be requested that would make it easy for them to destroy or fail to provide information on the basis that they didn't think someone 'might' request it.