Sir Peter Bowsher

So that's why it was introduced.

A second point I want to make to you is that official information is incredibly broad.

And it covers any information held by a minister or an agency or a local government in their official capacity.

So we've just seen very recently that the staffer at the Prime Minister's office received information, it seems, on his private email.

But that doesn't stop at being official information if the nature of the information was official.

And perhaps I'll just finish off by saying this.

The idea is that it shouldn't be a clumsy, gluggy act.

It should work so that if someone wants to know something for a reasonable, legitimate purpose, they should get it quickly.

But I'm afraid that's often not the rule, but the exception.

No, you'd think that it might be, but in fact it wasn't.

It was members of the public.

And a range of requests right across the board.

It could be something to do with the school board of trustees and performance at school.

It could be why a road in a local government area hadn't been fixed and what was going on.

It could be why rates were determined in the way that they were.

It could be to do with what happened in a foreign policy meeting.

Journalists are often investigative, wanting to know what happened on such and such an occasion and who said what to who.

So the journalist's request for official information is more likely to be of the investigative nature, of the entry-advanced sort.

wanting to get a story given with the most accurate platform possible and obtaining the raw material is by far the most helpful.

Yes, there are some problems with this Act, and I'll try and put things in perspective.