Parliamentarians (MPs and Peers) have access to two different systems of getting information from the government.  As members of Parliament,  they can use Parliamentary Questions (PQs) to ask questions and receive information from government ministers. They also have the same rights as everyone else to access information from public authorities through the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. 

This blog post describes the different features of the two systems, and where it might benefit Parliamentarians to use the more general right to access information.  

Parliamentarians should use FOI when:

• The information is held by a public authority that is not a central government department or agency.
• The information is held in datasets or full documents rather than snippets of information. 
• If information is likely to be (or has already been) withheld on public interest grounds and a right of appeal would be useful. 

In general, we think that Parliamentarians should take the same interest in Freedom of Information compliance that they do in Parliamentary Questions, and recognise it as an essential way that information enters debate and facilitates parliamentary scrutiny of government. 

FOI is not just directly useful for Parliamentarians, but is part of the information environment that informs wider work and scrutiny.  FOI use by journalists, campaigners, and researchers regularly finds its way back into the parliamentary discussion. 

We think Parliament can do more to take an interest in the good functioning of the FOI system, and would always love to chat to any MPs or Peers who want to see a stronger FOI system. 

If you’d just like to learn more about Freedom of Information – we have a series of guides on WhatDoTheyKnow with everything you need to get started.

Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information Act requires information to be disclosed on request except where it is covered by one of a range of exemptions. The Information Commissioner’s Office is the regulator for FOI, and the ICO’s decisions are ultimately appealable in the Information Tribunal. 

Parliamentary Questions are based on a convention of government transparency to Parliament rather than a formal law. This convention is part of the general expectation that government business should be open to Parliament, that also underpins how Select Committees ask for documents. 

This is reflected in the Ministerial Code as: 

Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in accordance with the relevant statutes and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

How this works in practice is led by the government’s Guide to Parliamentary Work. Parliament’s interest in the effectiveness of this system is shown through the Procedure Committee producing monitoring statistics and recommendations for updates to the guidance. 

The two systems are of comparable scale: in 2023 there were 56k Written Questions to central government departments and 70k FOI requests. Within a department, the responsibility to reply may or may not be held by the same people (there may be a practical split between wider parliamentary affairs and FOI management), although requests for information will then branch out to teams within the department. 

Differences in practice

In principle, where both mechanisms can be used to ask for the same information, they should get the same response. In practice, FOI can be a more reliable way of accessing information if the information is covered.

The government’s guidance encourages alignment between the standard applied for Freedom of Information and PQs (i.e. information should not be withheld that would be released under FOI) and the language used to deny access to information is similar across both.

However, there are examples of where information not released under PQs may be released under FOI, or the underlying source information can contradict answers given (as found early on in FOI’s availability through usage by the All Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition).

This difference does not require a bad faith approach to giving Parliament information, but this may sometimes be the case and it is something that Parliamentarians should pay attention to. The parallel systems have different compliance approaches,  and are often administered separately, and this can lead to different results.

Comparisons

	Freedom of Information	Parliamentary questions
Scope (authorities)	All public authorities	Central government departments and agencies
Scope (information)	Must be existing documents or information	May involve (within cost limit) extra analysis on top of existing documents to answer the question
Time period	20 working days	5 working days
Right of appeal	Yes – internal review, ICO and courts.	No – seen as Parliamentary activity but no explicit internal appeal system.
Cost limit	£600 (24 hours) – Central gov £450 (18 hours) – Other public bodies	£850 (34 hours)
Who can use it	Anyone	MPs and Peers
Results are…	Private/Public (it depends)	Public

 

Scope

Freedom of information covers all public authorities (Scottish public authorities are covered under the similar Scottish Freedom of Information law), while PQs can only be asked of government departments or their associated agencies. 

FOI requests must be for existing information or documents. PQs have a wider scope in that they may involve (within cost limit) extra analysis on top of existing documents to answer the question.

In practice, if seeking information from an existing document, PQs may result in an extract from this document, while an FOI response may return the whole document. 

Time period

PQs should be returned faster. The standard for PQs is they should be answered within five working days, and are considered late after ten.

Freedom of Information requests should be responded to within 20 working days. Technically, it should be as fast as possible – but information tends to be released at this last point.

A shorter time limit is an advantage for certain kinds of questions,  but may be a disadvantage when documents are hard to locate/access, leading to an incorrect “not held” response. This is one of the reasons why we recommend FOI for full documents. 

Right of appeal

A key advantage of FOI is the legal appeal route. 

Under FOI, there is an appeal regime through an independent regulator and the courts. There is no similar function for PQs. The guidance may encourage departments to apply the same logic to FOI and PQs, but the department’s logic may be wrong. Under FOI there is an external check on this, and disclosure can be compelled. 

Because the question and answer process is seen as part of Parliamentary proceedings, outside regulators and the courts cannot compel different answers. This is a construction of Parliamentary supremacy that is to the advantage of the government, and to the disadvantage of MPs.

As FOI exemptions are part of the logic used to allow information to be withheld, requests can end up in a situation where the FOI standard is used to withhold information, but without the equivalent ability to appeal.

For instance in this Written Answer there is the effective use of the FOI commercial exemption. If this was an FOI request, this could be appealed at first through internal review and then to the ICO. As a Written Answer there is no right of appeal (although it could be resubmitted as an FOI request). 

Cost limit

PQs have a higher threshold for the cost limit, meaning that in principle a slightly higher search time is allowed. 

Freedom of Information requests to central government departments and agencies have a cost limit of £600 worth of time (24 hours).The “disproportionate cost threshold” for PQs is currently £850 (34 hours)  — this is pegged at 140% of the FOI cost limit to the nearest £50.

In practice, this will rarely matter. Most responses that engage the cost limit reflect search times well above either cost threshold. An example of the disproportionate cost threshold being used can be seen here.

Who can use

Anyone can make an FOI request, while only MPs and Peers can ask PQs. 

In practice this is a fuzzy boundary. Campaigners with a friendly MP/Peer may be able to have questions asked and information released. Similarly, it might sometimes be useful for a government MP critical of party policy to have information requested by a third party through FOI. 

Information or documents released through PQs will enter the record or be a deposited paper, and so covered by parliamentary privilege and effectively public domain to use.

Information released under FOI does not have this same guarantee. Public authorities have a duty to provide information even if it is copyrighted or defamatory, and can’t be guaranteed to be legally safe to further republish. 

For instance, an FOI request for an internal report that a third party considers defamatory might be vulnerable to a SLAPP. In most cases, this is not a significant factor. When it is and the requester is an MP/Peer, key information could be covered under privilege in different ways. 

Who can see the results

The responses to FOI requests are less public by default, but this varies. 

Answers to PQs are given to the parliamentarian in question and published as part of the official record. 

FOI results are returned to the requester. If requested through WhatDoTheyKnow, the results are published in public (unless using our WhatDoTheyKnow Pro service, where results can be embargoed for a time). 

The authority may (or may not) release the results of an FOI request either through a disclosure log, or other public disclosure. For instance, information might be released simultaneously through FOI and through a public announcement to get the authority’s framing of the information across, and reduce the newsworthiness to the original requester. 

FOI is worth Parliament paying attention to

Both Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information open doors the others can’t. Both are important tools in a Parliamentarian’s role. 

FOI is not just directly useful for Parliamentarians, but is part of the information environment that informs wider work and scrutiny.  FOI use by journalists, campaigners, and researchers regularly finds its way back into the parliamentary discussion. 

We think Parliament can do more to take an interest in the good functioning of the FOI system, and would always love to chat to any MPs or Peers who want to see a stronger FOI system. 

Header image: Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Transparency is always a strong theme at TICTeC, and since so many members of the Access to Information Network were in town for the conference, we thought we’d take the opportunity to meet up. 

And so, the day after, several people who run Freedom of Information sites came together in an airy attic room to share knowledge and discuss challenges. 

As always when we convene this specialised interest group, participants were delighted to have in-depth discussions to other people who fully ‘get it’ — to whom the challenges of running such sites are not just academic, but form part of their day to day realities.

Sitting around the tables were Stefan and Luisa of Frag den Staat (Germany); Michael from CoST (Uganda); Ana from ForSet (Georgia); Miguel from Plaza Civica (Peru); Liset and Tim from SPOON (Netherlands); Krisztina from Átlátszónet Foundation (Hungary); Martin from Abrimos (Mexico); Rachel from AccessInfo (Europe); Michal, Piotr and Marzena from Citizens’ Network Watchdog (Poland); Laurent from MaDada (France); Maria from Fiquem Sabendo (Brazil); Matt from the Civic Tech Field Guide and Julia, Louise and me representing mySociety.

Positive wins 

We began by sharing recent successes. A few of the organisations were successful in overturning governmental attacks on, or restrictions to, FOI rights, while others had used research and activism to undermine negative perceptions around the Right To Know. We heard of successful campaigns and grant bids too — overall, sharing these wins was a great way to kick things off.

Learning new skills 

Ana gave a really insightful presentation on how ForSet had worked with ‘influencers’ to reach a new audience. Here, the term ‘influencer’ really just meant content creators with a wide following among the Gen Z audience they were trying to appeal to. 

For context, in Georgia young people have been out on the streets en masse, successfully protesting against proposed laws. Even if they weren’t yet old enough to vote, Ana pointed out, they could still influence public discourse and the political agenda. 

And now, as that generation reaches voting age, ForSet wanted to use social media platforms to encourage democratic participation.

As with everything the organisation does, the level of preparation and analysis that they brought to the project was outstanding, making sure that they fully understood who Gen Z would pay attention to, and trying out different messages to see what worked. There was so much to learn here about how to break into new audiences and how to ensure that what you were doing had an effect.

A forest of trees

Next, Rachel led us in an exercise to plot the challenges we face running ATI sites onto a tree diagram – with causes at the roots, core issues on the trunk, and consequences in the leafy canopy.  

What we discovered was first, that challenges and problems tend to be the same in every context; and second, that causes and effects are so interlinked that it is often difficult to decide which is which. For example, a lack of public understanding around ATI can both cause a low usage, and be the result of inadequate education around the topic. Authorities’ low response rates might be the result of poor governmental oversight, or the cause of public apathy – and so on.

Batch and back-ups

In the afternoon, the topics were decided upon by consensus: we had a useful conversation about the issues around batch requesting (sending the same request to multiple authorities), which sites offer in a variety of different ways ranging from it being open to most users, to being available only to staff (and some don’t offer it at all).  

Secondly, we discussed ‘backing up’ – both backups to ensure our own site archives were safe from loss, and means by which to scrape massive public archives when it becomes clear that they might be taken down by the authorities running them. This is not an imaginary scenario, as members were able to testify, and of course as we have seen recently in the States.

Finally, people voted on which topics they are keen to see covered in future webinars of the ATI Network, with youth and AI decision-making being most popular – so watch this space for those webinars to happen.

If you’re someone who’s concerned about the climate but not really sure what to do about it, this webinar is definitely a good place to start.

Our event this week brought together investigative journalist Lucas Amin of Democracy for Sale; Anne Friel, Head of Just Societies at Client Earth; and Joschi Wolf of the German transparency project Frag Den Staat – all sharing their knowledge around Freedom of Information as an invaluable tool for tackling the climate crisis.

It was very encouraging to hear practical tips and thoughts that made FOI-based activism seem within reach, even to the beginner. And all from your own desk!

Watch the webinar on YouTube. We’ve also compiled the responses to the questions from the audience that there wasn’t time to answer during the session: you can see those here.

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Image: Matteo Miliddi

In May, SPOON hosted a thought-provoking salon for our ATI network exploring the Dutch access to information framework and the wider European movement for legal reform of access to information rights. The event brought together experts and advocates, including Liset Hamming and Tim Staal, co-founders and executive directors of SPOON, and Rachel Hanna, Executive Director of Access Info. Together, they discussed the state of transparency laws in the Netherlands, the country’s role in international access to information efforts, and how civil society can push for meaningful improvements.

Setting the Scene: A New Law, a New Opportunity

The Netherlands introduced a new freedom of information law—the Wet Open Overheid (WOO)—in May 2022, replacing the previous legislation from the 1980s. SPOON was founded just months later in October 2022 to help journalists, NGOs, and citizens navigate the new law, and to advocate for better implementation and reform where needed.

According to Liset and Tim, the Netherlands has seen a surge of interest in FOI requests since the WOO was introduced, particularly among journalists. Many media reports now begin by explicitly citing information obtained through WOO requests. Yet while the new law looks strong on paper, SPOON’s work quickly revealed ongoing challenges with how it functions in practice.

Partnering for Impact: The Role of Access Info

SPOON’s partnership with Access Info has been key to its strategy. Rachel Hanna opened the salon by explaining how Access Info uses a standard methodology—based on the Tromsø Convention and international right to information (RTI) benchmarks—to assess the quality of transparency laws. This enables consistent evaluations across countries, scored out of 300 points.

Rachel outlined Access Info’s current comparative campaign across four countries—France, Greece, Moldova, and the Netherlands—each selected for its unique legal and political context. In the Netherlands, the existence of a new law presented both a challenge and an opportunity. Although the Dutch government has not signed the Tromsø Convention, the law mandates a review within six years—offering a window to influence improvements.

Legal Gaps and Practical Problems

Tim delved into the specifics of the Dutch system. While the Netherlands was once a global leader in transparency laws, it now lags behind in some respects. The new WOO law, despite its promise, remains nearly 80% identical to the old law. Key mechanisms such as a central document register and an independent information commissioner were left out—omissions that have become more apparent as implementation issues pile up.

The government in the Netherlands is talking about a 2027 refresh, which could be an opportunity for improvements, but there are concerns that calls for reform could backfire, leading to a narrowing rather than an expansion of rights—particularly given the current political climate of distrust and civil service resistance.

Tim highlighted how the lack of a central document register leads to overly broad requests from users, which in turn burden government departments. SPOON’s solution is to work closely with users to narrow and clarify their requests, helping to make the system work despite its flaws.

Bridging the Gap Between Law and Practice

A recurring theme was the tension between legal rights and practical realities. Rachel stressed that even a well-drafted law can fall short if poorly implemented. That’s why Access Info’s recommendations focus not just on alignment with the Tromsø Convention, but on the creation of tools and institutions—like an information commissioner—that can help bridge this gap.

In the Netherlands, judicial routes are available, but they are slow and burdensome. An ombudsperson can sometimes act more swiftly, but this depends heavily on the individual’s approach. An independent commissioner would offer faster and more consistent oversight.

Next Steps: Dialogue and Evaluation

Looking ahead, SPOON and Access Info are focused on fostering dialogue with government officials ahead of the WOO law’s formal evaluation. This includes creating a dedicated platform to engage civil servants in practical discussions on transparency, implementation challenges, and ways forward. A key goal is to ensure that civil society has a seat at the table when the law is reviewed—and to push for evidence-based, internationally-aligned improvements.

The salon highlighted a “perfect storm” moment: an emerging international consensus on best practices, a recently reformed national law, and a Dutch government that, while cautious, remains open to conversation. With the right approach, this moment could be the launchpad for meaningful reform—not just in the Netherlands, but as part of a broader European movement for open government.

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Photo by Paul Einerhand on Unsplash

Here is our monthly round-up of news from the transparency organisations in the ATI Network. This month, we have updates from Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Croatia, Hungary, Greece, South Africa and Latin America. What a global hum of transparency activity!

Access Info Europe have brought a joint legal challenge against the European Commission’s new internal access to documents rules, arguing that they violate the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and Regulation 1049/2001. More here.

SPOON in the Netherlands have gained two new members of staff, saying, “These new shining stars are not full-time, but definitely promising. We’re really happy with this addition and feel like we’ve gained a superpower!”

Additionally, they completed a major piece of research this month, investigating eight recurring assumptions in the debate around FOI in the Netherlands. It was the first time someone took the time to actually look at the facts. “And what did we find? None of them are true.”

The results of this research were presented just two days later in a parliamentary debate about the Woo, the Dutch FOIA. Hopefully, this will help counter the looming restrictions on the right to transparency in the Netherlands.

SPOON also advised three journalists on how to hold to account the Minister of Agriculture, who unceremoniously intervened by phone during a court hearing. This case, including the intervention, is now with the judge.

Finally, they helped a local media outlet in Amsterdam with their objection to a FOI decision, with the result that instead of nothing being released, nearly everything became public. Great result!

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska (SOWP) continued their intensive activities promoting transparency and protecting civic activism.

Together with Article 19, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, and the Polish Federation of NGOs, SOWP launched the anti-slapp.pl platform, which gathers comprehensive information about Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs).

This website offers access to legal analyses, reform recommendations, educational resources, and media coverage, thereby supporting journalists and activists in countering these threats.

SOWP also became heavily involved in the debate concerning the central register of public sector contracts. Their research across hundreds of local governments revealed that the Ministry of Finance’s proposed changes, raising the contract publication threshold from PLN 500 to PLN 10,000, would result in over 70% of contracts being undisclosed, undermining the effectiveness of the register.

They also re-ran their course “Hope(lessness) of Small and Large Municipalities,” enrolling 60 participants from across Poland, including councilors, local activists, village leaders, and public officials from 12 voivodeships. Over three months, participants will gain practical knowledge on civic oversight tools and local government operations.

Finally, SOWP also released two valuable podcast episodes this month: one addressing SLAPPs and another dedicated to successful actions aimed at protecting forests and local natural environments.

Handlingar, in Sweden, continue to apply for project funding and also looking into applying to be a part of incubators and accelerators. They want to focus efforts on getting Alaveteli much more well documented and easy to run and maintain and especially for the Pro features that can fund the public benefit free version of Alaveteli platforms. They’re looking to collaborate with all platforms and organisations in the FOIA networks! Get in touch at handlingar@okfn.se! 🙂

ImamoPravoZnati attended GONG’s annual Open Data Day conference on March 6 and 7. The event gathered institutional stakeholders, civil society organisations and data enthusiasts in a series of discussions and workshops, including one on digital tools for active citizens, where they presented their Alaveteli site Imamopravoznati.org.

KiMitTud, the Hungarian Alaveteli site, report: “In 2022, following an announcement, that the state had purchased N.S. Média és Vagyonkezelő Kft., the company that publishes the leading Hungarian sport newspaper (Nemzeti Sport), and designated a state-owned company as the entity responsible for exercising state ownership rights, Átlátszó submitted a Freedom of Information request for the contract related to the purchase of the Prime Minister’s favourite newspaper’s publishing company, but to no avail.

“They refused to release the document, claiming it was a trade secret.

“Since no such exemption applies to public funds and publicly relevant data, we took the matter to court. After more than two years of legal battles, we received the 33-page contract. The document revealed that the state had paid 3,479,756,000 forints in public funds for the publisher of Nemzeti Sport.” Read all about it here.

They continue, “Another court win from February, and quite an important one, as the court ruled in favour of the public in our case against a state railway company that hid its contract. The state railway’s maintenance subsidiary tried to withhold a 900 million HUF contract on the grounds that it “contains personal data that is subject to limited disclosure for GDPR purposes, as well as business secrets”. The court ruled, however, that as the company was managing public property and was therefore obliged to hand over the document to Átlátszó.” Read this story here.

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A The Greek organisation submitted two FOI requests this month. The first requested the publication of the members of the Ministerial Cabinet’s 2024 gift registry of (last May, following a successful appeal, VouliWatch had managed to get them to publish the registry for 2023).

The second requested information related to political parties and candidates’ finances from the Parliament’s audit committee, that is update on loans of each political party, election expenses of candidates and political parties, etc. The information in question, according to the law, should have been made public proactively.

Abrimos Info report that Mexico’s National Institute of Transparency for Access to Information and Personal Data Protection, INAI, is finally set to disappear this month, as secondary laws have already been approved.

Abrimos Info has secured a small rapid response grant to make a quick backup of parts of the national transparency platform, and continue to check on whether the data remains consistent after the switch.

They will be participating in the International Journalism Festival in Perugia in April, and participated in the OpenDataDay in México City. You can see a report on this here.

OpenUp ZA South African organisation OpenUp participated in the Africa & Middle East Open Government Partnership Regional Summit. “It was a lovely reconnection between our team and the stalwarts of the African FOI community in organisational partners like the Africa Freedom Of Information Centre, Uganda and the Media Rights Agenda, Nigeria”, they say.

mySociety: And finally, here at mySociety we have been working hard preparing for our TICTeC conference, after the whirlwind of the USA funding freezes – don’t forget to get your tickets!

We’ve also been drafting guidance around exceptions to the FOI act to support users from marginalised groups, and providing advice and support to two cohorts of people who are getting ready to submit their first requests.

 

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Image: Filip Mishevski

These are notes from a recent ‘fireside chat’ held by the ATI Network. For the sake of frank conversation and knowledge exchange, the session was not recorded, but you can read on for the main points.

Laurent and Xavier from the French Alaveteli site MaDada were talking about their learning process from working with Access Info on legal reform of FOI laws in France, as detailed in this post. This is part of the ATI Network project we’re working on across Europe to strengthen ties and skills between European Access to Information platforms.

The work began almost three years ago, when Rachel Hanna, Director of Access Info, and Helen Darbishire, the former Director, mapped all the FOI laws across Europe and organised them with high level recommendations and categorisation against an “ideal” law. From there, Access Info identified four different countries to work in depth with over the lifetime of the project to try and influence changes to laws or steps forward in campaigning.

France, with MaDada as its subject, was one of the countries identified, and there were a number of reasons for this which Laurent explained when we met: “The French context is difficult. The law is old, they tried to do some updating between 2016- 2018 with the internet in mind, but other than that it’s not changed since 1978.” However, one thing that has gained consensus from all politicians and lawmakers is that there is “constitutional value” to FOI in France, which is positive.

Laurent explained how Access Info dissected the law and broke it down into really distinct parts, separating which worked and which didn’t: “It was an interesting thing to see it dissected from the outside and get that perspective.”

They already knew that the law wasn’t a strong one, but viewing it through the eyes of people who work on improving these things really brought home how much work there is to do. For example, France did not sign the Tromso convention, despite being one of the key negotiators of the convention!

The law itself was revealed to be quite partial — there are a large amount of exclusions which are absolute, and no balance of interest is considered for release of information (like the public interest tests we have in the UK, etc). This is backwards compared to most of Europe. They do have an oversight body called the CADA, but apparently that body is weak both in resource and power.

Then, when it comes to implementation, this is even weaker than the law itself. And to compound this, barely anyone knows about the existence of the law either.

So, looking at Access Info’s three tenets of advocacy, lobbying and activism, MaDada set about defining what would be possible for them to work on.

Quickly, they realised that lobbying would be challenging. Right now France is in some political turmoil due to the dissolution of the parliament and subsequent failure of governments — they’re expecting another vote later this year, and this instability really puts a blocker in the way of discussing legal reform with politicians and getting legal change pushed through.

For the activism side of things, you need the movement behind you, and if not many people are aware of the law it’s hard to get together to campaign for this.

So advocacy was the route MaDada chose: promoting the law and increasing access. They had a slight chicken and egg issue with it. They desperately needed to find allies, but to find them, they needed to talk about FOI, and sell the law, which is tough when the implementation is so broken. They started down the training route and completed training with journalists which was positive, but also brought the realisation that this is a long-term endeavour.

They also tried publishing a report — which was met with silence. It’s disappointing but for the team it also felt expected, so they’re looking at the easy low hanging fruit for their next steps.

They came into this process with quite high expectations. They wanted to change something, propose new legislation or make a visible immediate difference, but actually going through the process they have realised that this is a long journey and they’ve taken the first step in a series of continuous action. Now their goal is to look back years from now and say “in 2025 we said this, and look at us now”. The first battle was won in 1789, with the drafting of the constitution, and it’s taken 200 years for it to become law, so MaDada have got to take a long view and set milestones which they can achieve and look back at and say how they’ve got there.

What are the key takeaways from working with Access Info?

A long view is needed, the law will never be “perfect” and will never get there immediately but small milestones and steps are the way to go. Also, you can really break this down and organise it like an engineering problem.

The transnational view was so helpful: they hadn’t realised how much it would be, but it’s good to have the feeling of “we’re in this together”. Finally, they made a list of what documents you can actually request in France and even they were surprised by how many it was!

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Image: Mathias Reding

February has been a whirlwind but we’re back deep in TICTeC organisation and looking forward to the sunny summer sun in Belgium in June. Let’s see what the network have been up to this month!

FragDenStaat: are promoting the use of FOI to counter the activities and disinformation spread by the far right movement in Germany

mySociety: have been presenting their work at various UK conferences, working on funding bids, writing documentation to support people who receive exemptions around commercial interest protection and helping organisations working with marginalised groups in the UK. 

Access Info Europe: and MaDada (OKF France) in France created recommendations on how to improve the national access to documents law to align it with international standards (see here). Open Knowledge France sent the recommendations to the French government calling for the signature and ratification of the Tromsø Convention, a step strongly recommended by GRECO in its Fifth Evaluation Report on France (see here);

SPOON: Old EU ruling, new possibilities!

 The highest court on public law in the Netherlands used on an ‘old’ European Court of Justice Fish Legal ruling from 2013 – about an information request from a British NGO to several water companies – to rule that certain kind of environmental information can be requested from (semi) private enterprises on which the state has ‘decisive influence’. This applies to environmental information that is related to ‘public responsibilities or functions concerning the environment’ or ‘public services related to the environment’ where this decisive influence exists in a way that the enterprise cannot carry out its environmental tasks ‘in a genuinely autonomous manner’.

 This could mean that, for example, water quality measurements conducted by or on behalf of water companies can be requested. Also companies such as KLM, Schiphol, Gasunie, the Port of Rotterdam, and Urenco where this kind of decisive influence exists. If the Port of Rotterdam or Schiphol checks whether ships or airplanes comply with energy efficiency and emission regulations, are they performing an environmental task? The ruling by the Council of State does not provide clear guidance on this question, but it is certainly worth a try.

Save our right to ask for government information 

On Thursday, February 13, Tim, on behalf of SPOON and investigative journalists, was asked to participate in a roundtable discussion in the House of Representatives to inform Members of Parliament about the practice of the Dutch Open Government Act. Along with other representatives from journalism he advocated for preventing any restriction on our right to ask for government information, which is what government authorities otherwise might propose as a solution to the poor implementation of the law.

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: After nearly two years of legal battles (which, in our circumstances, is relatively fast), we have managed to compile information from all Regional Directorates of State Forests regarding their expenditures on promotion and media advertisements in 2022. After four years, two court rulings in our favor, and a change of government along the way, the Ministry of National Defense has finally responded to our request regarding the author of a certain opinion posted by the ministry’s official profile on a popular social media platform—unfortunately, the ministry does not know.

We continue our advocacy efforts to repeal Article 212 of the Penal Code, which, due to the disproportionate severity of its penalties, significantly restricts freedom of speech in Poland.

We have sent information requests to all 135 public universities in Poland regarding the holding of multiple positions by university authorities (potential conflicts of interest), purchases and vehicle usage policies, salaries of university authorities, legal proceedings, and procedures for handling complaints (such as those related to mobbing, discrimination, etc.).

Other requests aim to determine how the Ministry of Justice is implementing the European Commission’s recommendations on combating SLAPPs and what exactly is happening within the Polish Hunting Association following recent revelations of serious irregularities.

Additionally, requests have been submitted for information on recent government meetings with representatives of various international corporations (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, TikTok, Huawei, Uber) and their outcomes (e.g., the content of signed agreements).

InfoProVsechny:

Ma Dada: Our focus has been on looking for funding, as we are reaching the end of our current grant. We are trying to build bridges across borders, mostly in the EU for now, as we think it’s our best chance at doing more than just surviving.

Handlingar: We are looking into using the technical setup from Madada.fr with Ansible technology. We want to gather the Alaveteli network to develop the Alaveteli platform and make it be possible to run without simple flaws or downtime – and without dependence on MySociety or any specific supplier or developer. We believe the time has come for Alaveteli to become a well-organized open source project, including having better documentation, regular release cycles, and a 5 minute process to setup a fully functioning Alaveteli platform in a new country or jurisdiction. All according to best practices within open source software development such as the OpenSource.guide from GitHub. We want to do great work together with MySociety, the Alaveteli network and FOIA community to get funding for development in order to make the Alaveteli software simpler to run, safer to run, easier to maintain and easier to customize. All without issues and dependence on MySociety. We want to reduce the burden on us, our network friends and on MySociety and increase all our chances for collaboration and success with Alaveteli – and of course the Right to Know.

ImamoPravoZnati: Gong is continuing its national “FOI tour”, providing training on strategic usage of FOI for civil society organisations. In February, a workshop was held in Split, with preparations underway for Pula and Karlovac. 

Abrimos Info:  As the INAI is sunsetting we are doing an automated distributed backup of a few of the data files that we can access via a collaborative effort across the Mexican civil society. We are asking for a rapid response fund for this work. The secondary laws creating the new “Transparencia para el Pueblo” institution have been submitted and are on the fast track to be approved. We have promoted a press release demanding changes. A second release today: https://x.com/article19mxca/status/1896363257008652507

We will be presenting on Pidala.info at Open Data Day in Mexico on March 1st.  And of course we will be participating and talking about these efforts at TICTeC 2025. 

OpenUp ZA: OpenUp has been collaborating with the KiMitTud team to co-develop impact measures and reports for the Hungarian FOI platform ahead of the TicTec festival in June!

CITAD: In our efforts to promote protection of digital rights in Nigeria, we are holding a two-day training for judges and lawyers on prosecuting and adjudicating on human rights abuses. The training will be held from 10-11 in Abuja and then 17-18 in Lagos. This would be followed by a series of advocacy meetings with  members of the National Assembly whose objective is to entrenched respect and protection for digital rights in the country. .   

 

2025 definitely felt like it’s had quite the entrance and things have been full and exciting here at mySociety’s transparency team! So let’s take a look at how 2025 started for the ATI Network

mySociety: have been working hard putting together a schedule for TICTeC, there’s going to be an ATI day on June 12th which we hope you’ll all attend, and there’s set to be an amazing group of ATI focused sessions which we’re excited about! We’re also kicking off our FOI support process for organisations working with marginalised communities and hope to share more about that soon.

Access Info Europe: sent the Moldovan  recommendations to the Council of Europe Access to Information Group, a monitoring body established by the Tromsø Convention (see here). They’ve also been pushing forward working with MaDada in France and SPOON in Netherlands getting their legal reform work rolling. 

SPOON: Started 2025 with our focus for the new year: hitting the streets. One of the ways we will do this, is by launching a Woo-forum and proactively answer all questions we receive via that forum. This also means changing our workflow(s) from a ‘we know what you need’ to a ‘tell us what you need’ approach. And teaming up with other organisations and professionals on facilitating the needs that come forward from these questions, kicking off with mySociety participating in their Impact Measurement Mentorship program!

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: In December and January, we focused on several key initiatives, including expanding free legal support for SLAPP cases and seeking funding for this program. We worked to promote transparency in salaries, improve the process for selecting the new Head of the National Electoral Office, and streamline the management of asset declarations. Efforts were also made to enhance anti-SLAPP regulations and advocate for Poland’s membership in the Open Government Partnership. Additionally, we hosted a webinar on transparency with experts, published a new edition of the Transparency Report and other summaries, and released a podcast on Public Information Bulletins.

Ma Dada: Ma Dada has been working together with Access Info on legal reform proposals for France, the result of which was just published. We have also been busy looking for funding, and training some more journalists to use the platform. Also, we officially left X/twitter because it is so far from our values that it didn’t make sense to stay there and try to fight an algorithm that is programmed to destroy everything we work for. You can do it too, and https://helloquittex.com will help you bring your community over to bluesky/mastodon in a few clicks.

Transparencia: are exhausted by a SLAPP procedure ((Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) A Maire from Brussels spent 48 000 € of public money in lawyers fees to defeat us in a second trial and ask for a non-disclosure clause of this huge public amount. This expensive lawyer has been contracted without public procurement. The blackmail (in case of disclosure of this amount) is to send bailiffs to our house.

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: Had a meeting with the General Secretary of the Ministry of Interior and presented/discussed in detail our policy recommendations for the improvement of the access to information legal framework. 

VreauInfo: and Access Info Europe have been working hard on recommendations for the FOI law in Moldova. Lawyers for Human Rights widely distributed the recommendations to the public and public bodies in Moldova and they were picked up by an Anti Corruption journalist who wrote a piece on their work. 

Abrimos Info: After the constitutional reform in México, the National Transparency Platform is transitioning from the autonomous body to the executive branch. Together with 200 orgs we published a text demanding data integrity during the transition. In x and linkedin. There is an official release by the executive branch mentioning cryptography for data integrity, likely because of our push.

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If you’re trying to get the law changed, it can seem like a monumental task: where on earth do you start? 

One organisation that knows the answer is Access Info Europe: they have a long record of tirelessly working for better rights to information across the continent, and have systematised their approach. This month, their Director Rachel Hanna shared insights with the Access to Information Network, in a legal framework masterclass.

You can watch the video of this session for yourself, or read on for detailed notes.

The benefits of Access to Information

Rachel explained that Access Info are currently running a project to improve the right to information in four countries.

Access to Information (ATI) is a fundamental right, and recognised globally as such — but it doesn’t always work in practice. Countries may have a legal framework, but how it works is often different on paper and in practice. For example, one of the best laws in the world is Afghanistan’s, but it’s worth nothing if it’s not implemented properly. 

When ATI is in place but not functioning as it should, it can be extremely frustrating: it puts people off using it.

Rachel pointed out that the benefits to society of a fully functioning ATI are clear, and to underline this, she cited the important findings of the three finalists of Access Info’s recent Impact awards:

• The Lighthouse Reports uncovered discrimination in algorithms to detect fraud in benefits, based on gender and ethnicity.
• Altreconomia in Italy revealed the use of drugs to keep people calm in repatriation centres. 
• Eleanor Shaikh, who we’ve written about before, used the UK FOI law to help vindicate Sub-Postmasters caught in the post office Horizon scandal.

If ATI is not working does it still have benefits? Access Info carried out a campaign in Malta when a person was told they couldn’t submit an FOI request because they were not residents of Malta. They took the case to court, using pro bono lawyers; the court agreed with them and said that the way the law was being implemented was discriminatory.

They also fought against a law in Montenegro that would have lowered standards.

Groundwork

Rachel described their ATI Network project to equip participants with three strategies:

• Advocacy – the act of persuading or arguing in support of specific clause or policy. The audience here is the general public and policymakers. For example, Access Info published research highlighting gaps and areas of improvement in the implementation of the EU’s ATI.
• Activism – this refers to physically active advocacy: getting out in the street, getting noticed. Here, the audience is public and communities. For example, in India a 40-day sit-in in a small town, demanding the creation of an ATI law, was successful.
• Lobbying – this means persuading decision-makers to take a particular action. The audience is policymakers and lawmakers. For example, in Mexico a multi stakeholder group influenced legislators to pass an ATI Law.

All three tactics can be used in combination. You can work systematically by first building the foundations, then creating visibility and finally converting the mobilisation into law.

They are currently carrying out four national advocacy campaigns with the same initial approach for each country, then tailored activities depending on the specific state of the law, the skills the partner has, and how these can be adapted to the situation in the country. The steps are as follows:

1. First they analyse the national context in which the ATI law is working: what are the strengths and the gaps; is it aligned with international standards? Is it Tromsø convention ratified? If so, has there been a recommendation from the Group of States Against Corruption, GRECO? Are they part of the Open Government Partnership (OGP)? Is there a promise to advance the ATI law under OGP?
   
   All of these factors can be used to hold governments to account. There might also be legislative considerations: for example in Spain, ATI did not fall under the fourth action plan as had been expected, and probably won’t be under the fifth now, either. While the will had been there, but the political context changed, making it very hard to pass laws right now.

As part of this process you should perform some stakeholder mapping: do you have any good allies in the government? Are there civil society organisations, private sector, campaign groups, media that might support the cause? They performed this research and evidence building for each country.

1. They then designed an advocacy plan, deciding what their goals were: would they push for better law, or higher use of the existing law? Better implementation? Making this decision helped them decide what sort of activity would be most effective: advocacy, activism or lobbying.
   You can build a coalition with lawyers, academics, journalists. Craft your message according to who you’re talking to. Always make your message about its recipient: why should they care about it?
2. Finally, you need to anticipate and adapt to challenges. Obstacles might be resistance from stakeholders, your own limited resources or a lack of public interest, to name three. 

National campaigns

Access Info did baseline research on the legal frameworks within each country. They crafted their own methodology that goes a little further than the Tromsø convention itself does, because some areas, like Article 8, don’t go into much detail: this recommends a ‘quick and inexpensive review process’ but doesn’t g into any detail about a body overseeing this and what powers they should have — so Access Info have added what an ideal body would look like and the powers it would have.

After examining all countries that run an Alavateli-based site, they decided to work in four countries, each with different states of legal framework:

The Netherlands adopted a new law in 2022, and not signed or ratified Tromsø. The legislation is strong on paper, but weak in practice. There’s an opportunity in that certain aspects of the law will be under review at certain stages; and they would also like to push them to sign the Tromsø convention.

Access Info partnered with Spoon, and they formed their plan in this context: their goal is to improve implementation and strengthen oversight.

They plan to create guidelines for officials handling requests, alongside with the committee that has oversight over the law. There is a lack of guidance, so Spoon can step in, and Access Info will advise

After five years there will be an evaluation of whether there should be a commissioner, and they will definitely say yes – this is the most popular model for oversight worldwide.

They will also promote the use of Alaveteli at local level, with the aim of influencing those at the national level: they’re not keen because they’re concerned about data protection, especially the issue that the officials’ name are published on the request. So they’re going from the bottom up to show how local government is using it in a way that doesn’t encroach on personal data protection.

You don’t always have to go to the national government:, see where you can have the most impact, which is usually not the ‘top top’ — the middle might be better. By working with the government to create guidelines, making material that will be useful for the five year review, there is a great opportunity for impact.

Moldova has a strong law, but there are concerns: in 2023, an update broadened the scope of exceptions and lengthed the timeframe for responses; and the oversight body is not strong. It has been Tromsø ratified, however.

Specific issues are a low usage of the law, and poor implementation compared to a strong law on paper.

Here, Access Info partnered with Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) who manage the Alaveteli platform for Moldova.

The goal is to bring the law into line with international standards: it’s a new law, but LHR are performing strategic litigation on issues around its implementation. For example, the Evaluation Committee is an independent body which evaluates the integrity of judges and prosecutors: they have ruled that they don’t fall under the ATI law, which is a bad interpretation, so LHR are taking the matter to court.

They’re also litigating against the over-redaction of personal data in court documents.

In Moldova a second goal is to increase use of Alaveteli platform, by highlighting success stories, partnering with journalists to highlight positive outcomes from requests, for example when requests showed that the level of bullying in schools was growing, they were able to get anti-bullying programmes implemented in schools. Other findings have been around gender based violence and malpractice by doctors: basically, “what can’t be measured can’t be improved”.

LHR are providing legal support to requesters whose requests are refused, and fighting against the misinterpretation of the law, in the hope that all these approaches will combat the underuse of ATI in the country.

France has a weak law: they have not signed the Tromsø agreement, and there’s a lack of awareness and implementation from both civil society and journalists.

At this time there is no room for reform of the law, but they will push for signing the Tromsø  convention.

As with Moldova, the main aims are to raise awareness of the law, and increase its use via the Alaveteli platform (Ma Dada). They’ll train French civil society organisations and journalists and create an FOI community to build the foundations for when there’s an opportunity for legal reform. They’ll create a practical guide so that individuals can understand what FOI can do for them.

Greece has a very weak ATI legal regime: there’s no one law that covers everything. Rather, rights are scattered across different laws and it is a very confusing legal framework. When a request has been refused, the appeal needs to be sent to one of a range of different bodies. They are not signed up to the Tromsø agreement.

Here, they have partnered with Vouliwatch at the national level, and are pushing for legal reform, better implementation and public awareness

Their goal is for a new legal framework, and to get Greece Tromsø ratified.

Vouliwatch has already lobbied the parliamentary committee to discuss the amendment of the law. They’re working to build a coalition to push the campaign forward, and have trained civil society organisations and journalists in a workshop. They’ll use this coalition to help them with joint statements, open letters, social media, media articles, et cetera.

General advice

Know your audience It’s about persuasion, advocacy and lobbying. Know who you’re talking to and why they should care. In messaging you can consider three types of argument, using Aristotle’s three types of persuasion:

• Ethos: establish your credibility: why should they listen to you? For example, in the Netherlands, the government weren’t aware of Access InfoEurope, so they worked to create allies in government and got them to introduce them to the person they wanted to talk to.
• Pathos: make your audience care emotionally, for example by storytelling  — showing how ATI can do good in society, and why we need it.
• Logos : make logical arguments supported by facts. “You signed up to Tromsø, but your law is out of line with that”.

Make your arguments valuable to the person you’re speaking to Public officials care about the levels of public trust in government, for example, so that’s a good angle to come in on.

Policy briefs Keep them short. Use short paragraphs of less than 20 words per sentence, and four sentences per paragraph for maximum impact.  

Make your brief persuasive and valuable to the reader: locate problems in their communities and offer the solutions.

Common errors are to include too little evidence or research; and to use too much jargon – keep it simple.

Be adaptable to change Impact can come in different shapes and forms — you might not have realised that what you’re seeing is impact, but for example, journalists getting access to new stories counts as impact.

Be prepared Create networks that will be ready when there are legislative opportunities.

And finally: don’t give up.

Q&A

There were then questions from the audience.

Q: “Building a coalition” sounds great, but difficult. What is the least it can mean? 

Rachel: Being reactive to a specific situation. For example, when the authorities were closing access to beneficial ownership registers, we could use that moment when there was outrage. We could gather different people and organisations who cared about the same issue — even though they were all coming from different angles.

It’s very valuable to bring people in who have completely different angles: they help you to see, and prepare for, what the opposition would say. So for example we have some strong data protection advocates in our ranks, who might argue against disclosure on those grounds. Having this sort of discussion with your allies helps you to get the arguments clear in your head before taking the campaign public.

Q: Could you go into more detail on who was running the campaign and who you communicated to when using public outreach, classic media, social media? Who was in the team for each country and what roles did you have?

Rachel: Vouliwatch are really good at public outreach: so they already knew who to reach out to. On the other hand, in Moldova they haven’t done something like that before, so we are helping them. Basically it depends on the national context.

Q: What heuristics are you using to know where you are? For example, if your aim is to ‘build credibility’, how do you know when you’ve ticked that box and are in a position to take the next step?

Rachel: It’s very difficult. In some places we already have credibility with the national institutions, so for example in Greece Vouliwatch have already had conversations, and feedback says they’ve been taken on board. That sort of thing helps you see that you’re making progress.

Q: Are there things we can do internationally to help national level organisations? Our connections are all in the UK, and they each have their own goals, constraints and focuses.

Rachel: it can be helpful to bring in the  international angle: for example the Council of Europe has an oversight group that looks at the laws of all countries that have ratified Tromsø. Even the fact that they exist at all sends a strong message.

It can be disheartening waiting for the moment to act. Your followers will get fatigued, so be strategic about when and how to use your voice. Channel your energies into activities that could have the most impact.

Q: Is there a regular schedule for updating the country’s policy ratings (the global RTI rankings) or does it depend on when you get the funding to do so?

Rachel: Yes, it is funding-dependent!

—

Image: Tromsø by Harry Jaschhof

As this will be the last monthnotes of 2024 (because on New Years Eve we’ll be looking back at the past year and toasting to the wonderful strides we’ve all made in our work in 2024) we here at mySociety’s transparency team wanted to wish you all a happy holidays and a fantastic new year celebration. Let’s take a look at what November brought us!

 

FragDenStaat: won the right for digital media to be considered media in the courts! This is a huge step forward for a slightly archaic system that previously had only considered printed media to be “the press”

mySociety: are pushing forward with our support to marginalized communities and are starting some cohorts of groups using our projects service in early January. We’re also excited to be mentoring SPOON on their impact measurement work !

Access Info: are working in depth with MaDada and SPOON on their legal reform Projects, and helping NI work on their OGP action plan. We also just delivered a Legal Framework Reform Masterclass for the ATI network and are looking forward to sharing more about our work in this area in 2025. 

SPOON: are preparing for next year! We defined our focus for 2025: leaving the building. Going out into the woods getting to know our users, what they need and how we can help. One of the ways we will do this, is by launching a Woo-forum in January and proactively answer all questions we receive via that forum. This also means changing our workflow(s) from a ‘we know what you need’ to a ‘tell us what you need, we don’t know’ approach. Introducing ‘intakes’ and looking for other organisations and professionals to work together on facilitating the needs that come forwards from thos intakes.

Also we are happy to announce to be one of the few lucky ones to team up with mySociety on their Impact Measurement Mentorship starting in 2025!

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: sent approximately 2,500 public information requests to schools, courts, and county offices. We organized local meetings about transparency. Together with other organizations, we advocated for anti-SLAPP legal reforms in Poland and took a stance on amendments to the law on assemblies. 

Ma Dada: have been working on a call for individual donations from our community, and a grant proposal for tech work together with mySociety (around GDPR/search). Work is ongoing  on our FOI observatory. We also had a brief internal conversation around a law proposal to bring back a 50€ stamp fee on court appeals (which would include FOI court appeals).

ImamoPravoZnati: Gong has been educating journalism students about FOI and demonstrating the uses of the IPZ platform.

KiMitTud: started a campaign with hashtag #kozadatbesztof (articles and social media postst) covering the most interesting freedom of information request of each month in 2024. We published two short animations: what does public data means and how to make a FOI-request (full article covering the topic in Hungarian here).
Some legal challenges for FOI in Hungary: the government has stuffed new legislation into a bill that removes the Ministry of Agriculture’s obligation to publish contracts with the National Land Center.
One of our latest successful complaint to the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information: a state-owned company has finally sent the impact study for the port of Trieste – the only problem: most of the document’s contect is covered with black marks.

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: sadly didn’t win their funding pitch to google to look at the use of AI in parliaments, but they’ll still be exploring this topic in the future. 

AccessInfo Hong Kong: will be relaunching our website with a new portal and name in Jan 2025! We also have published a manual on how to use the Code on Access to Information in Hong Kong in English and Chinese. https://civicsight.org/access/accessinfo/

Abrimos Info: are continuing the fight for the access to information right on multiple fronts. The reforms are on the verge of being approved without significant modifications or meaningful debate.  We have signed this joint statement with more than 200 CSOs. https://articulo19.org/mexico-dejara-de-ser-un-referente-en-el-mundo-en-materia-transparencia-para-convertirse-en-uno-de-opacidad/

OpenUp ZA: are working with KiMitTud on the impact measuring mentorship

Other news: 

In the Civic Tech Field Guide, we’ve aggregated network-wide Access to Info impact measurement metrics Thanks to everyone who shared their stats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash