22 October 2024
The Scottish Parliament’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee recently held a call for views on the Private Member’s Bill to Reform FOI, introduced by Katy Clark MSP.
The Commissioner’s response to this call sets out his view on various elements of the Reform Bill, including:
- the reform of the FOI Act’s ‘duty to publish’
- whether FOI timescales should be ‘paused’ instead of ‘reset’ when clarification is required
- whether public authorities should be required by law to have a designated FOI Officer with a range of specific duties
- whether the First Minister’s power to veto certain decisions of the Commissioner should be removed
- whether it should be an offence to destroy information in order to prevent its disclosure under FOI, regardless of whether a request has been made for it.
Click here to read the Commissioner's full response to the Scottish Parliament's call for views.
