UK Parliamentary Ombudsman publishes special report

UK Parliamentary Ombudsman publishes special report

The Parliamentary Ombudsman has published a special report on her Office’s monitoring of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information over the past 11 years and a two-part volume of the last investigations into complaints that government information had been wrongly withheld from those who had asked for it.

The report sets out the history of the Ombudsman’s involvement in monitoring the Code of Practice (which preceded the freedom of information legislation) after the Office was asked to take on this task in 1994; examines some of the landmark cases; and considers the impact of the Ombudsman’s work on freedom of information generally. The Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ann Abraham, said, ‘Through the decisions my Office has reached, much of the groundwork has been done to create a much more receptive climate for the Freedom of Information regime than was the case when we started our work on openness 11 years ago.’

Ombudsman makes final report on government openness (Parliamentary Ombudsman's website, 26 May 2005)