On 16/03/2012 11:40, Stephen Booth wrote:
I've recently moved house. I had dealings with a number of authorities from my previous address including submitting FoI requests. I now submit a request (by post) from my new address. They send the reply to my old postal address. By your logic they have complied but any reasonable person (I believe) would say they haven't.
That depends on whether post to your old address is being forwarded. if it is, and you received the response then they have replied. It would be extremely hard to argue otherwise.
If, though, you aren't getting post redirected, and thus don't receive the response, then no, they haven't replied.
It isn't about the address they sent it to. It's about whether you actually got it.
I do see what you mean about WDTK being unpopular with the authorities. But then I think that would be the case however and where ever the replies are made. Knowledge is power and those in power often don't want to share their knowledge. An FoI request is much like an audit, and the auditors and those who help them are never popular.
FoI isn't always unpopular. Nor is WDTK. There are a lot of authorities who see it as a very useful tool. But if you're taking an adversarial approach and assuming that everyone is out to try and deny you your rights then it tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy as you're likely to put people's backs up unnecessarily.
If you treat people like the enemy then they often tend to behave like the enemy. If there is one thing that WDTK, and MySociety in general, absolutely should not be doing it's treating FoI authorities as adversaries[1]. The point of WDTK is to make it easier on all sides, both for senders of requests and responders. It's a tool, not a weapon.
[1] Other than in the few, specific cases where the authority itself has, for some reason, picked a fight with WDTK.
Mark -- Sent from my Babbage Difference Engine 2 http://mark.goodge.co.uk _______________________________________________ developers-public mailing list [email protected] https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public Unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/archive%40mail-archive.com
