Freedom of Information - good news for housing associations?

The Government wants to bring housing associations under the scope of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIa).

Here, Mark Palmer, director of products and marketing at document management specialists Invu, considers whether they are ready to bare all.

"The Freedom of Information Act (FOI) came into force in 2005 and demands that individuals have the right to information, the right to confidentiality and the right to effective administration.

"As such the act means that members of the public can demand information at any given time and it must be readily accessible. Considering today’s government is planning to consult on extending the FOI still further, this should give those housing associations with limited grip on their documents serious cause for concern.

"A housing association typically holds vast amounts of information about each resident – past and present – and each property, making management of the sheer number of documents a trial in itself. It is therefore critical that a system and a set of robust processes are in place to manage such information, allowing administrators easy access to relevant material as requests are made.

"Many housing associations are not however sufficiently equipped to easily produce information as requested, and are falling short when it is being demanded. Not being able to produce such information sends out the clear message that housing associations are not forward looking, not up to date and are simply inefficient when it comes to the management of documents. Above this, the simple time cost of manually trawling through documents in order to satisfy an FOI request can be enormous.

"Housing associations must realise that it isn’t difficult, costly or disruptive to manage information in such a way that enables ready compliance with the Act – even if the legislation is extended. Culturally it doesn’t have to be difficult either – in a society when information is readily available (the Google Corporation is after all now a verb), it will be nothing short of an anachronism that any organisation cannot access the right information immediately.

"Housing associations must therefore evaluate their processes ahead of more stringent requirements coming into force. The question is not just whether or not the FOI is appropriate to housing associations. In a way this doesn’t matter – from an operational and forward-looking perspective, the ability to comply should be a given."