ABSTRACT
The continuous publication (or so it seemed) of news stories about parliamentarians’ expenses in 2009 gave particular resonance to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Unsurprisingly, local government has also been caught in the same unexpected and unwelcome glare of publicity with lower profile disclosures about politicians and officers. The FoI Act has been proving its worth, it has been argued, by extracting information from a reluctant system. In one sense this is true. Without the Act much of the information that has recently attracted so much interest and attention would not have found its way into the public arena.
