FOI research project

 

University of Hertfordshire

 

Background

 

The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is part of the University Alliance group of universities. Its decision-making and processes are becoming more centralised as University-wide processes and systems are implemented.

 

98% of UH’s FOI requests are received via email to the FOI email-box on the UH website, 1% are received by other members of staff who re-direct them to the FOI Officer and 1% are received by the FOI Officer through the post.

 

Since the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 2005, there has been a year-on-year increase in the number of requests received:

 

2005       7

2006       8

2008       24

2008       36

2009       46

2010       69          

2011       95

2012       23 to end-Feb. i.e. a 12-month total of 138 if the current rate is maintained.

 

UH employs one person to manage the FOI requests process; their time is split between FOIA, DPA and Records Management.

 

The process for answering FOI requests is as follows:

 

• The request is logged to an Excel spreadsheet
• An acknowledgement is sent to the enquirer
• It is allocated to the appropriate subject matter expert for answering
• Where necessary, a reminder is given after 10 and 15 days
• The response is checked. Where necessary, exemptions are considered
• The response is sent (invariably by email) to the enquirer
• The Excel spreadsheet is updated
• The request, acknowledgement, response plus any other key documents are uploaded to the UH electronic document and record management system

 

My aim in taking part in the study was, like JISC itself, to get an accurate handle on the time and cost to answer FOI enquiries. There is quite a lot of ‘push-back’ from the people who I ask to answer the enquiries so any good data in this area would be invaluable.

 

This ‘push-back’ takes a variety of forms:

 

• Querying the legitimacy of the request
• Supplying sketchy information
• Erroneously claiming an exemption
• Questioning the value of the FOI process

 

However, while this resistance undoubtedly exists, it is easy to over-state it. Staff appreciate that FOI is a legal requirement and respond accordingly.

 

The project approach involved asking those staff who answered the enquiries included within the study to fill in an Excel spreadsheet detailing the time they spent. I chose this rather than asking them to fill in the online Googledocs spreadsheet because it reduced the amount of training I had to give – I was already trying their patience enough as it was.

 

The email which accompanied the spreadsheet addressed this issue by explaining the background to the study and its importance in terms of helping to develop FOI policy.

 

Additionally, the quality of the returns was checked in several ways:

 

• I reviewed the spreadsheets based on my own experience
• Where necessary, I queried the returns to satisfy myself that nothing had been missed or under-recorded
• I reviewed the cases chosen for the study against the sort of cases UH generally received to satisfy myself that the study was representative of the bigger picture

 

As a result, I was satisfied that the recording of the time taken and the representativeness of the cases was a good sample of the overall FOI service at UH. 

 

Outcomes

 

I was initially concerned that the study, consisting as it did of a very small sample, might not be representative of the usual cases I handle. This fear appeared to be confirmed initially when, at the start of the study, I received an abnormally complicated and extensive enquiry. However, it was so complicated and extensive that I handled it by means of an excessive cost exemption so the work involved became more normal. Overall, I was satisfied that the enquiries I dealt with during the study were by-and-large representative of my general work-load.

 

The outcomes of the study were:   

   

• The primary outcome was – for the first time – a good estimate of the total end-to-end cost (in time and resources) of an FOI request. My only caveat to this was a slight concern that there may have been a tendency towards under-recording, simply because the people who were recording their times were multi-tasking and hence might not have fully recorded their time. Therefore, I consider their estimates to be on-the-whole accurate but within that, to represent the minimum rather than the maximum time spent. 
•  The study showed that only 10% of the total cost was spent on ‘Receipt, logging and initial analysis’. This points to an efficient ‘FOI machine’ where requests are quickly and simply logged then forwarded on to the relevant person with the minimum of bureaucracy and delay. 
•  The study showed that only 10% of the total cost was spent on ‘Reviewing the information’. This category is where senior management were primarily involved – for example, in agreeing that information can be released. It points (I hope) to those managers having sufficient confidence in their FOI Officer to be involved only on an exception basis. 
•  Only 8% of the total cost was spent on ‘Dialogue with the requestor’. The University generally avoids dialogue on the basis that it can rapidly escalate into long and time-consuming email chains. Instead, UH prefers to make sense of even the most poorly-worded request and knows what information it can supply in response. 
•  Only 7% of the total cost was spent on ‘Consideration of the application of exemptions’. Possibly, the study was unrepresentative here since the decision whether to apply exemptions can be quite difficult – both because they can involve fine legal distinctions and the public interest criterion is a matter of judgement and hence open to debate. 
• 0% of the total cost went on ‘Non-staff costs’, e.g. printing, photo-copying etc. FOI work is invariably electronic these days. 
•  The remainder of the cost, 65% of the total, represents the cost of actually answering the enquiries, i.e. finding and processing the information. This seems entirely reasonable, indeed a good result since it shows that the FOI process as practised at UH is comparatively bureaucracy-free. 
•  Finally, a comment about round-robin requests. It was clear from talking to other participants in the study that the % of these requests is considerably higher than an individual FOI Officer might realise. This has considerable cost implications – it shows that one author of an FOI request can generate a high overall cost from a single enquiry, simply by sending it to all HEIs (which is easy to do through a site like www.whatdotheyknow.com).

 

The benefits of the study to the University of Hertfordshire are two-fold: 

 

•  To counter the more extreme estimates of time and resources taken – the average time per request are considered reasonable. 
• To show that the University answers its FOI requests in a business-like and professional way, that requests are in most part answered in full and all were answered within the prescribed time-limit.

 

Overall, I have obtained additional confidence and ammunition with which to sell the FOI service to its detractors (there are always some of these). I can tell senior management precisely what they are spending per FOI request to buy public confidence in the openness, probity and competence of the University, which seems quite reasonable to me. 

 

Key lessons learned

 

The main lesson I learned was the benefit of sharing knowledge with my FOI colleagues in other universities; I think that more of this should be done so that our responses are more consistent and there is less ‘re-inventing the wheel’ as we all hand-craft our own individual responses.

 

It also re-enforced for me the value of publishing information pro-actively. Many FOI enquiries keep on coming up and could be met by a good Publication Scheme or Disclosure Log. I say this because I believe that UH could and should make more use of its Publication Scheme, which is quite short and involves the end-user having to email the FOI Officer for the documents in question, and should develop a Disclosure Log, which it currently does not have. It is noticeable that UH did not use a S.21 exemption in any of its responses during the study which points to these resources being somewhat under-developed.  

 

Summary & reflection

 

Overall, it has been a very valuable, positive exercise.  

•  In terms of running the study again at a later date, I'm sure that would be worthwhile. FOI has had a big impact – for good or ill and probably both – since it came into being in 2005 but it would be surprising if it were perfect as it stands. More detailed analysis of its workings would help it to work better, which in turn would help silence some of its critics. 

 

• If a further study were run, I would be in favour of drilling down further into the requests – interviewing the staff involved in answering the enquiries, comparing the responses to round robin requests to note differences, establishing benchmarks and best practices, even interviewing the people who submitted requests, etc.

 

• I would be in favour of more co-ordination, more sharing, more collaboration between HEI FOI officers. This would have several beneficial outcomes: 
• Greater consistency and quality of responses – so that a round robin request does not elicit different responses from different HEIs
• Development of data sets which would be published by all HEIs