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Mon, 8 Sep 2008
| New citizens' FOIA manual |  |
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December 13th 2004 A comprehensive new citizens' guide to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has been published. ‘Your Right to Know’ by Heather Brooke will be officially launched in January to coincide with the FOIA coming fully into force. The 250 page book is written in plain English and provides a simple explanation of the Act and its sister legislation the Environmental Information Regulations and the Data Protection Act. Broken down by subject area, it contains chapters on central and local government, transport, health, education and the environment, among others.The author Heather Brooke, who has dual UK and US citizenship, used the US Act to for a series of major newspaper exposes, including the misuse of public funds in election campaigning. She moved to the UK in 1996 and has written for a variety of national newspapers, including The Times, Guardian and Daily Telegraph. She currently runs FOIA training courses on behalf of the National Union of Journalists and other media organisations. She told freedomofinformation.co.uk, 'When I moved to the UK I was constantly frustrated by the lack of accountability of central and local government. Where I lived in Tower Hamlets so many things were going wrong, from rubbish collection and excessive noise to criminal assaults, but it was a real struggle to get the authorities to do anything. In the US the FOIA makes the public sector more accountable and that’s what I hope will happen here. I want people to read the book and be inspired to participate in our democracy.’ Brooke also runs a website to accompanying the book yrtk.org, which has regular updates and commentary on the UK’s openness legislation. ‘Your Right to Know: how to use the Freedom of Information Act and other access laws’ by Heather Brooke, published by Pluto at £12.99 |
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