Yuletide reports of government departments being deluged under piles of a fine white substance had
nothing to do with the winter weather.

In fact, it was the result of systematic document shredding across government on a scale that would
make an Enron executive blush, designed as a pre-emptive strike in anticipation of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 coming into force on 1st January 2005.

No way out
If a public authority receives a request for information on a matter such as a marketing services
contract, it will now have just 20 days to grant access to that information, or determine whether
one of the 23 exceptions applies, only two of which are likely to be relevant. The first applies to
information supplied in confidence, provided that it remains genuinely confidential at the date of the
request. The second relates to trade secrets.

As it is impossible to contract out of the Act, how can agencies protect their information? Negotiate a duty on the public authority to notify and consult about information requests. Make an advance
assessment of what information might be exempt. Format documents to make potentially
exempt information readily identifiable and divisible.

In some countries that have enacted similar legislation, information requests frequently come from
competitors fishing for intelligence about their rivals. So if your agency has ever contracted with any one of the 100,000 public authorities caught by the Act, or even only pitched to one, you had better hope that your documentation found its way into the shredder too.