Dear all, The world's first FOI law was premised on the notion of imposing a duty on authorities (including courts) to publish official information, documents etc and giving people a right to make copies of them.
Who knows when the notion of the "individual requester" model was first mooted? Best wishes, David On 8 December 2011 09:26, Mark Weiler <mweiler at alumni.sfu.ca> wrote: > I know here in British Columbia (BC) Canada our provincial FOI law has had > "proactive disclosure scheme" since 1992.? So, pre-Internet. > > I'd be interested to know more about if "proactive schemes" are working as > intended.? So, (a) what are their goals in measurable terms? and (b), have > there been evaluations of them? > > > ________________________________ > From: "Worthy, Ben" <b.worthy at ucl.ac.uk> > To: 'Mark Weiler' <mweiler at alumni.sfu.ca> > Cc: 'Foianet Net' <foianet at foiadvocates.info> > Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2011 12:37:29 AM > Subject: RE: [foianet] FOI Publication Schemes > > Dear Mark, > > They were (I think) a pre-information revolution idea to have an index of > documents so people wouldn?t make requests but would first look at what an > authority holds. Our studies of central government and local government in > the UK found that few members of the public use them because they are (a) > unwieldy (b) have been superseded by the internet search engine. > Consequently lots of authorities do not put a great deal of effort into up > keeping them-they prefer to just put things onto the website. The UK PS > schemes were recently revised and simplified-I don?t know what effect this > has had. > > Let me know if you want to see some of our research. > > Ben Worthy > > UCL > > From: foianet-bounces at lists.foiadvocates.info > [mailto:foianet-bounces at lists.foiadvocates.info] On Behalf Of Mark Weiler > Sent: 07 December 2011 21:07 > > To: Foianet Net > Subject: [foianet] FOI Publication Schemes > > I notice that several FOI laws have "publication schemes" which define > classes of documents that a public institution's proactively makes available > (e.g., posting on-line). > > Can anyone describe this feature of FOI legislation?? Where did it begin? > Are there places where it is working particularly well? Any challenges with > it? > > Thank you, > > Mark Weiler > > -- "Ye canna get leave tae thrive for thrang", A Ramsay (ed) A collection of Scots Proverbs (1736)
