Lords propose public contracts to include FOI provision and FOIA annual reports

The House of Lords is proposing amendments on Freedom of Information to the Protection of Freedoms Bill. The Lords propose that any contract for any sum over £1 million made by a public authority with any person would have to include a freedom of information provision. Where such a contract is to any extent performed by means of a sub-contract, that sub-contract would also need to include a freedom of information provision.

The Lords also proposed, on 20 December, a new clause on “Annual report on compliance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000”. Public authorities would be obliged to publish an annual report on their compliance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, including statistics about the number of requests received, responses to them and the timeliness of those responses, any fees charged, the number of complaints received, the outcomes of those complaints and the time it has taken to deal with them, and the number of complaints made to the ICO.