Issue - meetings

This report proposes alternative solutions to publishing requests for information made under the Freedom of Information Act, with related replies, on the Council’s public website.

RESOLVED: That a combination of Options 1 and 2, as detailed in paragraphs 6 and 7 of the report be approved, as part of the improvements to transparency and to FoI processes contained in the More for York Programme, involving:

·        The adoption of Option 1, use of the Documentum system (which should be available from 2011) as the longer term solution and

·        The implementation of Option 2 in the interim; this being the periodic publication of a web page carrying links to PDF versions of the enquiry and response, with a minimum period of two weeks between a response being sent to the enquirer and its publication on the website.

REASON:      To ensure that the Council acts with maximum openness and transparency and provides as much information as possible within the resources available.

Members considered a report which examined how best to provide public access to requests for information made under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act and related replies.  Consideration of this matter had been deferred from the Executive meeting on 30 March 2010, to enable Officers to bring forward alternative proposals to publishing the information on the Council’s website.

Four options were presented, as follows:

Option 1 – use the Documentum records storage and management system as a publicly accessible information resource.

Option 2 – publish a monthly web page listing all FoI questions answered that month, each with a pdf link to the response.

Option 3 – publish the FoI questions only, with an offer to provide the reply on request.

Option 4 (not recommended) – do nothing.

The options were examined in paragraphs 10 to 18 of the report.  It was recommended that a combination of Options 1 and 2 be adopted, with Option 1 as the longer term solution from 2011 and Option 2 being used in the interim. This would be consistent with the Council’s strategy of using Documentum as its principal store of electronic records, whilst allowing time to develop the special configuration required, as part of the More for York Programme plan.

Having noted the comments of the Labour Group Spokespersons on this item, it was

RESOLVED: That a combination of Options 1 and 2, as detailed in paragraphs 6 and 7 of the report be approved, as part of the improvements to transparency and to FoI processes contained in the More for York Programme, involving: ¹

·        The adoption of Option 1, use of the Documentum system (which should be available from 2011) as the longer term solution and

·        The implementation of Option 2 in the interim; this being the periodic publication of a web page carrying links to PDF versions of the enquiry and response, with a minimum period of two weeks between a response being sent to the enquirer and its publication on the website.

REASON:      To ensure that the Council acts with maximum openness and transparency and provides as much information as possible within the resources available.