{"id":132358,"date":"2020-09-21T09:36:12","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T08:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=132358"},"modified":"2020-09-21T09:36:12","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T08:36:12","slug":"the-freedom-of-information-act-turns-20-3-tips-for-prs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/the-freedom-of-information-act-turns-20-3-tips-for-prs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Freedom of Information Act turns 20: 3 tips for PRs"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a guest post from Luke Budka, Head of Digital PR and SEO for TopLine Comms<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop. There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s how Tony Blair described the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in his memoirs. He subsequently described it as ‘the worst mistake’ of his career. However, it introduced a level of government transparency that became the envy of citizens around the world.<\/p>\n

The FOIA was passed on 30 November 2000 in the UK and since then has laid bare, among other things, a parliamentary expenses scandal<\/a>, the sale of 20 tonnes of nuclear materials to Israel in 1958<\/a> and a plan to search for the Loch Ness monster using a team of dolphins<\/a>. It\u2019s been reviewed, and restrictions such as charges for access to info have been considered (\u00a310 per request back in 2015), but it has survived, almost unaltered, for 20 years come November.<\/p>\n

A simple search on Google shows 20 stories on the BBC<\/a> in the last 12 months related to FoI requests either made or reported by the institution and it continues to be used by news organisations everywhere.<\/p>\n

The best PR stories (in our experience) are based on data. That\u2019s why the FOIA is one of the most powerful weapons in a PR\u2019s armoury.<\/p>\n

Our latest FoI requests, for example, were in reaction to news that hackers had extorted $1.14m from the University of California. On hearing this, we sent requests to every UK university asking if they\u2019d been targeted: within 30-odd working days (COVID-19 is slowing things down) we found out that one third of UK universities have been subjected to ransomware attacks<\/a>. The story was covered by leading cyber outlets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never submitted an FoI request before and you\u2019re wondering how to develop a story using the Act, here are a few tips.<\/p>\n

1) Generating FoI request ideas and sense checking<\/span><\/strong>
\nAs with any story you\u2019ll work on, research into a seedling of an idea, combined with one of the core emotions required for a story to be shareable, will ultimately lead to your angle. Be sure to Google your hypothesised headline to see if it\u2019s been done before. If it has, then great, you\u2019ve hit upon a newsworthy idea, but if it\u2019s been covered recently, then it may be hard to put a new spin on it. Having said that, in this topsy-turvy world we\u2019re currently living in, normal behaviours have changed; a request made today may reveal drastically different information to a request that was made in January.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s definitely also worth checking WhatDoTheyKnow<\/a> and the government\u2019s own FoI repository to see if the request you\u2019re considering has already been made. Responses recorded on these sites will help you craft your questions. You\u2019ll, hopefully, be able to avoid the most common FoI refusals: too much time and expense required to answer the request (\u00a3600 for central government or \u00a3450 for all other public authorities) or the information simply not being held.<\/p>\n

If, for example, you see a public authority has refused five years\u2019 worth of data because it\u2019ll take too long to extract, then you know if you ask for a year\u2019s worth you\u2019ll have a higher chance of success. Section 16<\/a> of the FOIA stipulates a public authority has to provide \u2018advice and assistance\u2019, so you can state in your request that you\u2019re prepared to take a shorter time period\u2019s worth of data, and they should do their best to provide the info\/work with you on a successful request. Section 16 also helps if you approach the wrong authority \u2013 they should advise on who you should ask instead (you can call the authority in advance if you want to find out if they hold the data you\u2019re interested in).<\/p>\n

2) Submission, data collection and analysis<\/span><\/strong>
\nThis is a pain. There are professionals tools<\/a> out there that you can use to manage the process but we\u2019ve always used good old fashioned email and spreadsheets. You can also submit via the aforementioned WhatDoTheyKnow website (however, the request and any subsequent response will then be in the public domain forever). Ultimately, spreadsheets are what you\u2019ll need to analyse the data, so it makes sense to use them to collect it.<\/p>\n

Requests can be sent en masse to multiple authorities using the blind copy function in a single email, which means you can send requests to every university in the country, for example, in one fell swoop. You\u2019ll then receive an emailed receipt from every authority you\u2019ve emailed explaining that they\u2019ll aim to respond in 20 working days (COVID-19, as mentioned, is slowing things down). File the receipts in one folder in your email client and file the actual responses containing the data in another. Whenever a response comes in, add it to your spreadsheet and start analysing. Worth pointing out: you don\u2019t need to send requests to multiple authorities to generate a newsworthy headline \u2013 you could be interested in a single body, for example \u2013 it\u2019s going to come down to the questions you\u2019re asking and the headline you\u2019re looking to generate.<\/p>\n

A few notes:
\n\u2022 Be polite \u2013 real people will be responding to your request. It\u2019s always nice to be nice \u2013 you don\u2019t need to be demanding or rude. Strike up a dialogue; it\u2019s more likely they\u2019ll help you get what you want then anyway.
\n\u2022 Be specific \u2013 research the exact terminology related to your request. Do not leave any ambiguity in your questions; get a colleague to check your questions before you send.
\n\u2022 Collection of FoI addresses takes time. Thankfully, journalist Matt Burgess has compiled spreadsheets of addresses that you can use (though I don\u2019t know if he maintains them) \u2013 find them here<\/a>.
\n\u2022 Don\u2019t send unnecessary requests \u2013 it costs the government a lot of money to respond to FoI requests and it\u2019s a privilege that should not be abused. This doesn\u2019t mean don\u2019t use it, but if you submit requests, I personally feel that you have an obligation to do something with them.<\/p>\n

3) Story creation<\/span><\/strong>
\nYou\u2019ve sent your requests and you\u2019ve collected the data \u2013 now what? Does the data prove your hypothesis? If so, then you\u2019ve already got your headline. Draft your press release, prepare your pitch and package the data up and host it on your site \u2013 it will always be useful to use as a source (and invaluable for link building purposes) plus it saves the media having to ask you for it (as they\u2019ll normally want to double check your analysis). Worth noting: you don\u2019t need every authority to respond for you to have a decent story. You\u2019ll almost always see news organisations caveat their FoI stories by making the point that only a certain number of authorities responded. Ultimately, it\u2019s your call as to whether you\u2019ve got the data required for your story to work.<\/p>\n

Books have been written on the FOIA (and they\u2019re well worth reading if you\u2019re interested in the topic) and it\u2019s impossible to do it justice in a single blog. It\u2019s an amazing tool that PRs can use for the benefit of their clients. But, with great power comes great responsibility \u2013 don\u2019t abuse it, or you\u2019ll ruin it for everyone.<\/p>\n

Happy birthday, FOIA \u2013 long may you continue to inform the public and keep the watchmen accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The best PR stories (in our experience) are based on data. That\u2019s why the Freedom of Information Act is one of the most powerful weapons in a PR\u2019s armoury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":132365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132358"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132362,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132358\/revisions\/132362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}