Reluctance over FOI eroding says info boss

(CNS): Traditional resistance by government employees in the Cayman Islands over releasing information to the public to divulging information is “slowly eroding,” the information commissioner told a group of accountants recently. Jennifer Dilbert said that information managers were becoming more comfortable providing information to the public under the freedom of information law during a presentation to the bean counters organised by her office as part of the information commissioner’s outreach. There have been over 2,500 FOI requests made to public authorities since the inception of her office in January 2009.

Dilbert provided a brief introduction to the Freedom of Information initiative at Government Finance Professional Development Week, at a conference for public and private sector professional accountants and students.

Outlining the exclusions and exemptions that are allowed in the Freedom of Information Law, including strategic intelligence gathering by security services she noted that in general everyone has the right to most of the information that government gathers and maintains, and the resistance of personnel to divulging information about government was slowly eroding.

Recent statistics from the ICO have revealed that while there is considerable improvement in releasing information a worrying trend by the office is the length of time that it takes authorities to release information and the lengths a limited number of government officials are going to with the introduction of lawyers to stop information being released.