Social housing and FOI

UK Open Government Network
1

Dear all,

The Campaign for Freedom of Information is supporting an amendment tabled by shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook MP and drafted with the assistance of the Greater Manchester Law Centre to bring social housing providers under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The amendment (New Clause 9) has been tabled to the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill which starts its Commons committee stage starts today. The amendment may be reached this afternoon.

The Bill proposes a new and alternative ‘access to information scheme’ for social housing tenants. The government’s impact assessment on the Bill states that the proposed scheme:

‘will bring the ability of tenants of PRPs [Private Registered Providers] to access information in line with those of local authority tenants, who can access information from their landlord under the Freedom of Information Act.’ [emphasis added]

In fact, the scheme falls far short of matching the rights under FOIA. We believe a more obvious and effective solution would be to bring social housing providers under FOIA.

If you can help re-tweet or share our briefing it would be very much appreciated:

https://twitter.com/CampaignFoI/status/1597556777318756352?s=20&t=S4ZVf3hvEN1eyN-TZKDxeA
https://www.cfoi.org.uk/2022/11/social-housing-providers-and-freedom-of-information/

Best wishes,

Katherine

Katherine Gundersen
Deputy Director, Campaign for Freedom of Information
Web: www.cfoi.org.uk | Updates: www.cfoi.org.uk/about/receive-cfoi-news | Twitter: http://twitter.com/CampaignFOI | Mastodon: @CampaignFoI@campaign.openworlds.info

2

Great work Katherine!

I’ve voiced our support this afternoon.

Good luck!

Duncan

Duncan Hames

Director of Policy and Programmes

Transparency International UK

+44 (0)7711 526879

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3

Thanks very much Duncan and everyone who re-tweeted. It’s much appreciated.

The minister opposed the amendment. It was withdrawn, but we hope Matt Pennycook will re-table it at report stage where it will be voted on.

You can read the discussion of it here (see Clause 22 and New Clause 9 https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-11-29/debates/9a0cc275-eb8d-42b1-879d-bf26c53fe521/SocialHousing(Regulation)Bill(Lords)(SecondSitting)

All the best,

Katherine