Minister said extending FOI to schools could lead to ‘crude league tables’

Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn described proposed changes to Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation which he said could have resulted in all schools coming under its remit as “unnecessary and unwise” and cautioned that this could lead to the creation of “crude league tables”.

In correspondence to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin in June 2013, Mr Quinn raised serious concerns that "all schools" would be captured under the definition of an FOI body under the legislation, a move which he said would impose an "intolerable administrative burden" on individual schools.

'Intractable problems'
He cautioned that such a move would "present intractable problems" and would "fundamentally undermine far-reaching reforms that are under way in the school sector".

Mr Quinn pointed out that the provisions as drafted also undermined the Government policy on allowing access to students’ assessment and examination data that could, if released under FOI, lead to the compilation of school league tables:

“These provisions are contrary to written assurances given to me by (Mr Howlin’s) department in advance of the Cabinet meeting of July last when a memorandum for Government on this matter was discussed,” he said.

Pointing to correspondence dating from July 2012, Mr Quinn said officials from his department, engaging with their counterparts in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, had agreed that, although the Vocational Education Committees – which have since been replaced with education and training boards – should come under the remit of the legislation, that assessment and examination data relating to schools managed by them should be exempted.

However, he noted that this exemption had been deleted in a draft circulated to the department, something Mr Quinn asked be rectified in the proposed legislation.

The subsequent FOI Bill, which was presented by Mr Howlin to the Oireachtas on July 22nd 2013, included a specific partial exemption for education and training boards relating to the release of records that would allow assessment and examination results to be collected and compared.

It also specifically excluded the boards of management of all other schools under a list of exempt agencies, effectively exempting individual schools from the remit of the legislation.