| Freedom of Information requests 06:38 - Dec 13 with 541 views | LegendofthePhoenix |
On the surface, these seem like a good thing. But they have become a plague, hampering public services from doing their job.
I work in an NHS hospital, and we are becoming swamped with FoI requests. The rules state that there is a cost limit of 18 hours at £25 per hour max. Each request must be responded to within 20 days, unless it takes more than 18 hours. 18 hours is half a working week for the person who has to respond.
NHS Trusts are getting huge numbers of FoI requests from individuals acting for private companies who want to know all the details about assets (how many, what type, how much did you pay, where are they, how often do they get serviced, when will you be replacing? etc etc). so that they can sell more, as well as requests from students and media for research projects, and individuals who may have legitimate reasons.
Is this what we want our NHS staff to be doing? We have too few people to be doing the actual repairs and servicing, but now we have got to a point where we are forced to divert technicians from doing what they were employed for, to gathering information for FoI requests. This surely is not what the law was created for? There should be a set of requirements for public bodies to publish, as acccountability is vital. But responding to hordes of requests , many of which are for commercial gain for the private companies wanting to sell more, is an abuse and needs to stop. No wonder the NHS is struggling. |  |
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| Freedom of Information requests on 06:46 - Dec 13 with 514 views | BlueBadger |
It's a feature, not a bug of government 'reforms'. The need for competitive tender for services exposes the NHS to thee kind of predatory practices which help to drive their (frequently fraudulent) bids for services(remember community services in Suffolk - Serco certainly do, after their effort to crash the party fell over) and a subtler way of undermining other services(diverts staff from other areas to man it) as part of the decade long 'defund, demoralise. privatise' government agenda. |  |
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