Government and Information: The Law Relating to Access, Disclosure and their Regulation is the leading text offering comprehensive and practical advice on the access, disclosure and retention of government records under UK, EU and ECHR requirements. It is essential reading for all those dealing with public authority information.
The fifth edition is extensively revised following numerous developments in both UK and EU law as well as the ever expanding case law on information rights under statutory, Convention and common law provisions.
Legislation:
Justice and Security Act 2013;
Crime and Courts Act 2013 (s 34 in relation to press standards following Leveson);
Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015
Investigatory Powers Bill 2016;
Environmental Information Regulations 2004;
General Data Protection Regulation 2016;
Key cases since the last edition include:
Evans v Attorney General [2015] UKSC 21 - the SC ruled that the Attorney General had acted unlawfully in issuing a veto preventing disclosure
Kennedy v Charities Commission [2014] UKSC 20 - Supreme Court extended the ambit of the common law in relation to access to information and transparency
Case 362/14 Schrems [2015]) - involving data transfer to the USA
PJS v Newsgroup Newspapers ltd [2016] UKSC 26 – developing the law of personal privacy
This title is included in Bloomsbury Professional's Local Government Law online service.
Patrick Birkinshaw is Emeritus Professor of Public Law, University of Hull. As well as
Government and Information: the Law Relating to Access, Disclosure and their Regulation (5th ed co-authored with Mike Varney, Bloomsbury Professional 2019), he has published many books and articles including
Freedom of Information: the Law, the Practice and the Ideal (4th ed Cambridge University Press 2010) and
The European Union Legal Order after Lisbon (Kluwer Law International 2010 with Mike Varney). He is the author of
European Public Law (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and
European Public Law: The Achievement and the Brexit Challenge (3rd ed Wolters Kluwer, 2020). He has acted as a specialist adviser to the House of Commons Public Administration Committee on three separate inquiries and reports and has been a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Irish Research Council and a research council of the Finnish Academy. He has undertaken numerous consultancies for UK and overseas governments on freedom of information and transparency. He is editor of the quarterly journal
European Public Law.
Dr Mike Varney is Head of Lincoln Law School, where he teaches a number of undergraduate modules in law, including Administrative Law, Company Law and Commercial Law.
Mike's main research interests lie in administrative law, local government law and aspects of company law. He also holds an interest in the teaching and scholarship of employment law.
