What systems do you have that currently facilitate information management?

At the preparation stage, you should not be attempting to establish technical solutions to respond to FOI requirements. There are many factors that could affect decisions about the appropriate solutions which, at the early stage of preparations, may be largely unknown. There are many aspects of compliance, some of which are discussed throughout this book, where either technical or manual solutions are possible. While technical solutions may have possible benefits of automation, better integration and consistency, cost may be a prohibitive factor where only a small number of requests are anticipated.

However, technical systems are likely to help manage compliance issues and it may be that systems that are currently used to manage information can be enhanced or changed in some way to partially meet some FOI requirements. It will therefore be useful to ascertain what systems are used throughout the organisation and how they are used to manage information. Issues to consider regarding technical solutions are further discussed in Chapters 4 and 5.