With a General Election looming, the Scottish minority SNP Government has decided to put clear “Skye-Blue” water between its attitude to Freedom of Information and that of the Labour Party – the main opposition in Scotland.
Scottish Minister for Parliamentary Business Bruce Crawford has confirmed the Scottish Government will consult in spring 2010 on whether to extend the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 [FOISA] for the first time to cover a wider range of bodies who deliver public services in Scotland.
The organisations to be consulted on extending the FOISA legislation are:
- Local authority trusts and bodies with responsibility for providing leisure, sport and cultural services.
- Private prison operators running Scottish prisons and private contractors providing prisoner escort services.
- Glasgow Housing Association (mainly because of its size and influence) but no other Housing Association.
- Private contractors who build and maintain schools and hospitals, and those who operate and maintain trunk roads across Scotland.
When the UK Government set out a similar consultation exercise with 'high-falutin' objectives it ended up "listening" very intently. The result was that Jack Straw produced a mighty mouse of an extension to FOI (see my blog of 23/07/2009; “The Freedom of Information equivalent of ‘not tonight Josephine’?”).
Something similar could still happen in Scotland. As I said, don’t get too excited – it could just be politics.
Note: we are thinking of putting together some FOI/EIR courses based on Scottish law but we are not sure of the demand. If interested, please contact us ([email protected]).
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