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Annual Report 2008 - Text
Release Rates
During 2008, 55% of requests dealt with by all public bodies were granted in full and a further 22% were part-granted. This means that, allowing for the 1% of requests transferred and the 10% withdrawn or handled outside of FOI, 12% of requests were refused in 2008. While overall figures on release rates are comparable to 2007 and previous years, the 2008 refusal rate of 12% marks a continuation of a gradual downward trend in refusal rates over the last number of years. I welcome this trend.
As was the experience in previous years, there are differences between sectors in their rates of release. Chapter 4 (Table 5) shows the full release rate for local authorities (54%), the HSE (70%), third-level institutions (48%), the voluntary hospitals/mental health agencies/voluntary bodies (70%), and other bodies (55%). The Civil Service (36%) continues to have a lower release rate than the other sectors, with its rate almost identical to the 35% rate of 2007. These figures appear to support the conclusion I reached in 2007 that the lower release rate in the Civil Service appears to result from a more restrictive approach to providing access to information generally than in the other FOI sectors. Another trend apparent from the 2008 figures is the continuing decrease in release rates in the third-level institutions, down to 48% compared to 58% in 2007 and 64% in 2006. This is a matter to which I will return in future reports.
