Freedom+of+Information+Act+2000

Freedom of Information Act **__Freedom of Information act __**

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (c.36) is an  Act of Parliament  that is of the  Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates the public a "right of access" information held by public authorities; it is because of this that we can check the news on websites such as, “bbc.co.uk”. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level. The Act implements a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the 1997 general election, developed by Dr David Clark as a 1997 White Paper. The final version of the Act is believed to have been diluted from that proposed while Labour was in opposition. The full provisions of the act came into force on 1 January 2005. ====A second freedom of information law is in existence in the UK, the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (asp 13). It was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2002, to cover public bodies over which the Holyrood parliament, rather than Westminster, has jurisdiction. For these institutions, it fulfils the same purpose as the 2000 Act.==== ====Around 120,000 requests are made each year. Private citizens made 60% of them, with businesses and journalists accounting for 20% and 10% respectively. Journalists' requests took up more of officials' time than businesses' and individuals' requests. The Act cost [|£] 35.5 million in 2005.==== ====In a nutshell freedom of information is the ability for the public to access information when they wish to know answers for their questions, from the government or other various services. A great example( []) for this was in the scandalous year of 2009, when politicians (people of the government) were found guilty of using the peoples taxes to splash the cash on luxuries they “saw” as essential for them, and part of their health care. The government never released this until a journalist started “sniffing” around and asked them to publish their results. Under the freedom of information act, the government were required to publish the details on this, and thus caused utter outrage to the public and many of them were seen in blushes and resigned in shame. ====

The law in itself protects the general public. It allows us to inspect on the current affairs of OUR money, and what is happening to it.
====The consequences of this agreement are under some judgement could lead to a penalty of imprisonment, a fine etc. It is the information that protrudes from this act that could condemn someone, not breaking the act itself.====

News article = [] Protection Act 2000