Freedom of information and unusable data

Full and clear disclosure? Depends whose giving it out. (Photo: Shutterstock.)

It seemed a simple enough request: grassroots campaigners asking a major national charity for information on any cuts to services in their area. The charity in question – Rethink Mental Illness, which runs around 400 services and support groups across the country – thought it sounded pretty straightforward, too, and its policy team swung into action to compile a nationwide picture. They contacted every local authority in England, making a Freedom of Information request for details of any changes to mental health spending in 2011/12, compared to 2010/11 .

Then things started to get a little complicated. Anyone who’s ever submitted a blanket FOI request to a group of respondents, whether local authorities, NHS trusts or police forces, probably won’t be surprised to hear that more than half of the councils – 53 per cent – didn’t provide the information requested. Some were able to refer the enquirers to online “budget books” containing the figures, others said that DCLG’s annual publication of the data it receives from all councils on their spending allocation would provide the answer. (Public bodies can legitimately refuse FOI requests if the information requested is scheduled for future publication. In this case, the DCLG release was three months away.)

So the charity recorded the responses they had received, extracted the data they were pointed towards, and waited for the DCLG publication of council spending breakdowns. When this came, they checked the data they’d been given by local authorities against that held centrally – and things moved from merely complicated to downright contradictory.

In only 14 out of 151 instances did the local authority FOI response produce figures that tallied with the DCLG figure. By contrast, more than double that number, 30, produced figures diverging by more than 10 per cent. Comparing spending in 2010/11 with that planned for 2011/12, Cheshire West and Chester’s FOI response said it was increasing mental health spending by +25.7 per cent, when DCLG figures showed a cut of -14.3 per cent; Knowsley’s balance sheet says it is cutting by -1.5 per cent, whereas DCLG stats say they are increasing spending by +29.3 per cent; Croydon’s figures suggest a whopping increase of +62.9 per cent, but the DCLG puts that at a rather more modest +7.4 per cent.

Rethink queried those councils with the most divergent figures. Some offered explanations that are reasonable, but probably opaque to a layperson. Cheshire West and Chester, for example, said that their own figures were the “direct budget” for mental health services, whereas the DCLG revenue accounts give costs on a “statutory accounting basis”. Others pointed to the inclusion or exclusion of services for the over-65s as a reason for discrepancies. Still others confessed to simple errors – while several more treated the request for clarification as a new FOI and are yet to respond.

But end result is that, more than a year on, experts within a major national charity are still completely in the dark about the spending changes they set out to map. “And if we, as a national charity with research and policy teams, can’t get hold of the numbers,” says Rethink Mental Illness’s CEO Paul Jenkins, “what chance do ordinary people have?”

Those who work with FOI requests day in, day out, are unsurprised by the charity’s lack of success. Iain Overton is editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which frequently deploys Freedom of Information requests in its research.

“I have had FOIs rejected on spurious grounds, where a neighbouring PCT or council has happily handed over the data,” says Overton. “I have seen government organisations do their utmost not to answer a simple question, such as ‘How much does your chief executive earn?’

“And I have had FOI responses come through that contain a story, the facts of which are not challenged by the press officer when asked.  But when the story comes out, the same press officer goes to their local paper and says that facts are wrong.”

This government has enthusiastically embraced the theory of open government, and is perceived by many as a global leader on these issues. Last month the United Kingdom became co-chair of the Open Government Partnership for a year-long term; and rights groups have applauded British efforts to improve transparency in countries receiving international aid.

But meaningful open government isn’t simply about the disclosure of data. It’s about whether that data is usable, reliable, and – surely it’s not too much to ask? – intelligible. Rethink’s experience suggests that greater transparency needs to begin at home.

This article was first published in the New Statesman.  It is republished here with thanks.

Read Rethink’s report, Lost in Localism, here.