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This is the second in a series of updates from Warren Seddon, Director of FOI and Transparency. His blog posts provide a regular update on our FOI work and share key learnings to help practitioners and the wider FOI community understand our developing thinking and carry out their roles. You can read Warren's last blog post here.

The story of our performance regulating the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act is one of doing more with less in real terms. Even before the pandemic we continued to face year-on-year increases in the number of FOI complaints we were receiving against a background of static government funding.

The pandemic therefore exacerbated longer term issues that means our performance right now is not where it needs to be to aid transparency and accountability within the public sector and we know that. We must therefore look to bring the way the FOI Act is regulated onto a more sustainable footing.

Tackling this is one of the Information Commissioner, John Edwards', highest priorities for his first year in office. The need for the ICO’s regulatory role to be supporting an effective and modern FOI system is something he has been hearing throughout his listening tour. But tough decisions need to be made to address these issues. And it is these decisions that John was keen to discuss when he recently met FOI Civil Society stakeholders to hear their views as part of the tour.

Click here for the full press release