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Scottish housing associations coping well with new FOI duties, says Information Commissioner
Almost all Scottish registered providers are confident in their ability to meet a new responsibility to respond to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, according to a report from the country’s Information Commissioner.
Published today, the Scottish Information Commissioner’s report found that 97% of providers said they were confident they could effectively respond to FOI Act requests, after they became subject to the legislation in November 2019.
According to the report, 84% of requests for information held by organisations resulted in some or all of the request details being disclosed.
A little over half (57%) of registered providers reported a “small” impact on staff workload, while 95% reported receiving 24 or fewer requests.
Just 8% of organisations have employed new staff to deal with requests while most have relied on existing staffing and structures.
Of the 74 respondents to the commissioner’s survey, 81% said they were publishing more information as a result of the FOI.
Around of quarter of associations (27%) said the FOI had brought no benefits to their organisation, but 39% disagreed with this view.
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Launching the survey report, Scottish information commissioner Daren Fitzhenry said: “We know from our work helping organisations prepare for FOI that [registered social landlords] took their responsibilities seriously and the sector worked hard to get ready for FOI.
“As our report shows, this preparation has paid off – organisations are, on the whole, confident, open and responding well to FOI.
“This will be good news for tenants of the 280,000 homes across Scotland affected by the change and for their wider communities.
“It’s no secret that open and transparent organisations are more trusted by service users, and FOI provides a vital framework to enable transparency, as well as providing an important right of appeal if people are unhappy with a response.”
The Scottish government decided to extend the FOI Act to cover housing associations in November 2015, but the date for the change was delayed several times until it was eventually introduced in November 2019.
In England, similar proposals were put forward in the Social Housing White Paper, which said housing associations would be subject to rules that “broadly aligned” with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 – sparking concern from housing association leaders.
