The impact of FOIA on
Records Management in
Local Authorities
Dr Elizabeth Shepherd
Dr Alice Stevenson
SLAIS, UCL
Research project
 Funded
by the Arts and Humanities
Research Council for a year, 2008-09
 What has been the impact of the
FOIA on records management in
public authorities, especially local
government, in the UK?
 three perspectives: records
managers, FOI policy managers, FOI
requestors and user communities
Research Objectives
how well records management services
prepared for and coped with the first three
years of FOI implementation
 what contribution records management
services make to the ability of public
authorities to comply with the FOI Act
 how the user experience of FOI is affected
by the management of records
 what the implications are of FOI so far for
good practice in records management.

Background
Amos et al. 2008. FOI 2000 and local government in 2007: The
experience of local authorities in England. London: Constitution Unit,
UCL.
Background
Amos et al. 2008. FOI 2000 and local government in 2007: The
experience of local authorities in England. London: Constitution Unit,
UCL.
Research method
 Data
collection: 22 semi-structured
interviews with officers responsible
for FOI and/or records management
in local authorities in London and
south east of England (county,
unitary, city and London borough)
 Two focus groups with requestors
 Data analysis using NVIVO 7
Understanding the Context



Position of RM and FOI in the
organisation relative to each other.
Roles and responsibilities:
electronic vs paper.
Departmental perception of RM and
FOI.
Understanding the Context




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E-government and technology
Data security
Organisation of employment
Space/Accommodation
Business efficiency
Interpreting the impact
– “It’s more high profile, but the actual way we do things
hasn’t changed”
– “It’s probably made awareness of RM. You go round and
people realize there’s a need, but it’s just there’s never
enough time or money to actually get good RM in lots of
teams.”
– “AS: So there hasn’t been much change in RM as a
result of FOI in this council?
X: There has been a change in so far as we have
brought in training and raised awareness”
- “I mean what’s changed is the intention to address that
I think and to do so on a corporate basis”
Nature of requests
 “FOI
requests in [the council] at the
moment, tend to be to do with stuff
that is actually active now or within
the last financial and that is the sort
of stuff which hasn’t even got to the
stage where it’s in a RM sphere”
Knowledge Management
– “a lot is not stored in a records management
document manager. It is still stored on servers
that are unique to each directorate or unit or
service so we have to chase humans to get
access to the information.”
– “I think what we found in terms of FOI is that
the ability to retain information is based on a
person and not a system. It is the person who
knows what keyword it is. It is the person that
knows what the subject area is. It is the
person that interprets a request..”
Coping with FOI
– “I don’t believe we have never not found it
despite our not having a very structured RM
system. “

“I would suggest that we are fully compliant but
it’s harder. It is so much harder because you
can’t go to an area and say ‘that’s the
information’. You have to have to ring around,
double check and you read through a document
and think ‘ah, that refers to document X two
years ago. Have you got document X of 2 years
ago?’. So you have to chase it down”
Coping with FOI
“My guess is that the quality of what we are
providing – we might answer a request – but
the quality of what we are providing on the
whole is not good because of RM. If we had
better RM the quality would be better because
you will be sure the documents you are
providing will be the latest one.”
An increasingly important role for
RM?

“We haven’t had, or at least to my knowledge we
haven’t had something which is dependent upon
version control. It only needs one or two people
who understand the FOI game probably to cause
havoc and mayhem. “
An increasingly important role for
RM?

“The other thing, in addition to what appears to
be a broad increase in the number of requests,
however they are logged, the complexity has
increased. I think whoever is making the request,
a member of the public or the media, they are a
lot more aware of their rights. They are a lot
more litigious if they receive a refusal notice,
they are more likely to challenge and appeal a
refusal notice and the actual requests are a lot
more probing, a lot more detailed as well. “
The impact of FOIA on Records
Management in Local Authorities
Dr Elizabeth Shepherd
(e.shepherd@ucl.ac.uk)
Dr Alice Stevenson
(alice.stevenson@ucl.ac.uk)
SLAIS, UCL
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/
icarus/foi-impact/