Disclosure logs provide organisations with a public record of responses to information requests made under the Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations. There is no legal requirement to maintaining a disclosure log, but it is considered to be good practice by the Information Commissioner’s Office. This post reviews the limited use of disclosure logs by local authorities and hopefully will encourage more councils to consider using them to improve transparency.

What is a disclosure log and what is its purpose?

A disclosure log is a published, online list of information released by public authorities in response to Freedom of Information (FOI) or Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) requests.

Disclosure logs allow people to check if information has already been released by an organisation before submitting a new and potentially unnecessary FOI or EIR request.

FOI requests can take up a great deal of council officer time and effort. In many councils FOI officers send out requests to council service teams to answer. They do this as the service teams are the ones who have the required subject knowledge. Service teams need to review FOI requests whilst trying to focus on service delivery. This can be a major challenge. In particular, it is difficult when service teams have to review and answer the same or slightly different questions over and over again.

A disclosure log can help to reduce this burden. It does this by providing a growing data repository which people can use themselves to find information that they require. In many cases the questions people ask have already been answered. Consequently, these answers can be found in a disclosure log, avoiding the need to make a FOI request. This can make it quicker and easier to access information. It also improves transparency.

How many councils provide a disclosure log?

I visited every council website in the UK and Ireland (410 councils in all) to find out who provide an online searchable disclosure log.

63 councils currently provide an online searchable disclosure log and 39 councils provide a static log. By a static disclosure log I mean a collection of documents which are not searchable, are mostly spreadsheets and are usually presented in date order. That leaves 308 councils, who don’t provide any type of disclosure log whatsoever.

Static disclosure logs provide access to FOI data, but they can be time consuming to scan through. This may put people off trying to use static disclosure logs, which slightly defeats the object of publishing the data.

Online searchable disclosure logs are a better option from a usability perspective as they make it easier and quicker to find information. Search options generally include keyword and date. However, some councils also provide the ability to filter by category, A-Z, FOI reference or outcome.

The software used to build an online disclosure log includes iCasework (Civica), govService (Granicus) and Citizen Hub (Netcall). Others appear to be developed inhouse, presenting information from database lookups. I particularly like the approach used by govService (Granicus) where people are taken on a journey for searching for information on the disclosure log. People only progress to complete an FOI request if nothing suitable can be found. The rest seemed to be largely standalone disclosure logs, rather than part of a wider process. They often have little supporting information or explanation of the potential benefits of using a disclosure log. Overall I found the user experience pretty disappointing. There were a few exceptions:

• Coventry City Council – FOI and EIR Requests
• Cumberland Council – FOI/EIR disclosure log
• Lambeth Council – FOI topics
• Leicester City Council – FOI directory
• Liverpool City Council – Disclosure log
  

Why aren’t more councils using disclosure logs?

I am not entirely sure why more councils aren’t using disclosure logs. There are software options available and it probably isn’t too difficult for councils to build something themselves.

It could be an awareness thing or a lack of understanding of the value that using a disclosure log can bring for the council and its users. I suspect that there is some awareness, but that disclosure logs are way down the priority list for many in the current economic situation that councils find themselves in.

Longer term I think that Local Government Reorganisation and the work of GDS Local may help to improve and encourage the development of digital services such as disclosure logs.

Disclosure logs on council websites (UK & Ireland) – Research

You can view my research about disclosure logs on council websites below. The research includes details of councils with disclosure logs and web addresses for these logs. Please get in contact if you have any feedback or want to report any updates to the research.