Tighter financial limits placed on information requests submitted to Scotland’s single police force and unified fire service could inadvertently create a culture of secrecy, according to a top politician.
Prior to the unification of Scotland’s eight police forces and eight fire services on April 1, individuals could submit requests under freedom of information (FOI) laws which were subject to a £600 cost limit for each response, equivalent to £9,600 if every service was asked the same question.
But following the amalgamation of the services the limit has remained at £600 for a single request, meaning the single services are expected to search information held on the eight “legacy” forces on a relatively smaller budget.
The leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Willie Rennie, has warned that if the situation is not rectified, Scotland’s police and fire service could become embroiled in a conspiracy of secrecy.
He said: “It’s certainly a real concern that not only are we having the police service centralised, and therefore not as connected as they were before to local communities, but we are not able to get the information that we want to scrutinise and hold them to account in the way that we used to, so they are now more distant and remote compared to what it used to be.
“I think there will be greater secrecy as a result of this because you won’t be able to get the same level of detail because they’ve effectively put a tighter cost limit on it it means that the police service will perhaps be able to keep secret things that previously would have been open.
“I’m not really a conspiracy theorist, so I suspect that it’s more by cock-up than conspiracy, but if they carry on without changing the arrangements it might turn into a conspiracy.
“It doesn’t surprise me that this happened but it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be sorted, because open government is something that we cherish in Scotland.”
He said he now planned to raise the issue with the justice secretary.
“We are taking it up with Kenny MacAskill to try and get him to change the arrangement so that we can continue to scrutinise the police in the way that we used to be able to,” said Mr Rennie. “We are hoping that Kenny MacAskill will see sense and make arrangements to allow that to continue.”
Mr Rennie’s thoughts were echoed by Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser.
He said: “FOI requests have increased the transparency of both government and key public services this should be championed and supported. However, it would be unfortunate to see this reversed if the correct financial support is not made available for handling FOI requests.
“There must be a review of FOI procedures to ensure that under the new single police and fire services the same level and quality of FOI requests are processed.”
Police Scotland said they had rejected very few requests on the grounds of excessive cost and that they are looking at alternative ways of providing information.
A spokeswoman said: “Scottish public authorities including Police Scotland are not obliged to comply with FOI requests if the cost of the request would exceed the total prescribed 40 hours/£600.
“For the month of April, the force received 205 freedom of information requests. Only 3.2% of these have been advised that all the information requested cannot be provided due to cost involved.
“Police Scotland is doing its utmost to provide information requested under FOI and we are also examining ways in which more information can be provided on the Force website so that specific requests for information no longer need to come via freedom of information.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “This is an operational matter for Police Scotland, which will devote the resources necessary to meet their FOI obligations.”
The Scottish Information Commissioner’s office said they could only comment on cases where there were “specific circumstances”.