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
 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.
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.”
– “There has been a change in so far as we have
brought in training and raised awareness”
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… we
have to chase humans to get access to
the information.”
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…
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. “
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/