A Scottish freedom of information regime for a denationalised environment: rhetorical or authentically practical?

Liddle, C. and McMenemy, D. (2015) A Scottish freedom of information regime for a denationalised environment: rhetorical or authentically practical? Information and Communications Technology Law, 24(3), pp. 225-241. (doi: 10.1080/13600834.2015.1084678)

Abstract

This paper provides an evaluation of the Scottish freedom of information regime in the modern denationalised environment. The authors conducted a pragmatic investigation by means of a real-world compliance inquiry which involved, among other things, the electronic submission of standardised requests for information to those local authority arm's-length external organisations which find themselves now subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. A compliance matrix, with several response measures, recorded the progression and outcome of the requests sent to each named ‘public authority’. The article is also furnished with a contextual overview of the interaction between the home nation FOI regimes and private enterprise with a nod to contemporaneous events. In turn, the paper reveals several quagmires for the operational practicality of FOI in the privatised arena: a pronounced reminder of the difficulties associated with maintaining a functioning and practical FOI regime in light of a myriad of public service delivery models in the denationalised epoch.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: Scottish freedom of information, freedom of information, FOI, compliance, privatisation.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: McMenemy, Dr David
• Authors: Liddle, C., and McMenemy, D.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > Information Studies
• Journal Name: Information and Communications Technology Law
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• ISSN: 1360-0834
• ISSN (Online): 1469-8404
• Published Online: 16 September 2015