FOIMan explores how FOI and transparency rules interact with the process of procuring new goods and services by public authorities.
One chapter that didn’t quite make it into my book due to lack of space and time was going to focus on the interaction between FOI and procurement processes (though of course the book still includes useful tips for dealing with requests about contracts). I’ve sought to redress this in my latest article for the Freedom of Information Journal. You can, of course, subscribe to the journal, which contains lots of useful articles and the latest FOI news – details can be found opposite and at http://www.pdpjournals.com. However, you can also read the article here.
My next FOI journal piece will highlight what we don’t know about FOI – some of the ‘facts’ that we bandy around about the Act, but are not quite as set in stone as we might think…
By the way, we’re planning an experiment for a future issue of the journal. If there’s an FOI or EIR problem that you’ve never quite got to the bottom of and would like me to explore, let me know either directly or via PDP. I can’t promise to deal with every query submitted, but the aim is to answer a selection of queries in the article. If it works, we might just do it again. Even if you don’t subscribe to the journal, the eventual article will, as ever, be reproduced here. So if there’s something you don’t know about FOI, and think others might be puzzled by it too, drop me a line with ‘FOI Journal Q&A’ in the subject line and I’ll see what I can do.