Katy Clark

She also confirmed the final proposal for her Freedom of Information Reform (Scotland) Bill will be published in October alongside a summary of consultation responses.

The Scottish government followed Ms Clark in launching its own consultation on FOI reforms earlier this year. The Scottish government has failed, however, to extend FOI coverage to all providers of public services, and a pledge to reform FOI was absent from the Programme for government.

On IRKD, also known as the United Nations’ International Day for Universal Access to Information, the West Scotland MSP argued a “culture of secrecy” exists in the Scottish public sphere and that legislation around access to information is “woefully outdated”.

She said: “Today, national governments will be encouraged to reflect on the public’s right to access information, but a glance at Scotland’s balance sheet tells us we have a long way to go.

“We have a raft of public services delivered by providers which aren’t covered by FOI. We have legislation which is woefully outdated. We have a culture of secrecy, where responses by some public organisations are frequently late or evasive. And we have a Scottish government which has essentially been under special measures over its atrocious FOI performance for the past five years.

“In a democratic country, this isn’t good enough. And yet, despite parliamentary committees and former Information Commissioners calling for root and branch reform, the Scottish government’s own suggestions are toothless and miles off what the public is demanding.

“I’m looking forward to now bringing forward proposals for overdue reforms which will close legal loopholes and ensure public information follows the public pound. I sincerely hope the Scottish government will finally step up and support modernising reforms, ensuring Scotland lives up to the lofty ideals first set out when FOI law was first passed two decades ago.”