PRONI Annual Releases
The PRONI Annual Release of selected official files continues against a background of greater public access through the Freedom of Information Act (2000), balanced against the need to protect personal information.
'PRONI Annual Release' explained
Every year since 1976, official records held by PRONI which are 30 years old have been reviewed and some made publicly available.
In September 2011 the time limit for the release changed from 30 years to 20 years. This change is being phased in over 10 years, with two years’ worth of records being reviewed and released each year.
In 2023, the records of Northern Ireland (NI) departments and the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) -
- with a terminal date of 2000 were brought forward for release during August.
This process involves the referral of the files to the Responsible Authority for sensitivity review. This entails a page by page examination to make sure that a record contains nothing sensitive as defined by the Freedom of Information Act (FOI), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act (DP).
Records released in August 2023
- 420 files being deemed as suitable for release as “fully open”
- a further 180 files are open but keeping to blanking out of some content
- 19 files will stay closed in full, the bulk of which are individual prisoner files
The main file series being released includes Central Secretariat files.
Issues covered
Some of the main significant issues covered by the 2000 release include:
- Devolution and Assembly issues – Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, North South Ministerial Council, First Day Briefs
- Health: Acute Hospitals Review Group
- Equality and Social Inclusion: Travellers, Juvenile justice, Community Relations, Minority languages, Housing, Targeting Social Need
- Flags & emblems
- Political (and Economic) Co-operation: British-Irish, North-South
- Transport: Railways, M1/Westlink improvements, Cycling
- Environmental Issues: Coastal Erosion, Dumping at Sea, Pesticides, Energy (NIE Nuclear Review)
Full and partial closure
Records may be closed either fully or in part only. Partial closure involves the removal of a limited number of papers from the files to make them suitable for release under FOI.
For the release of as much information as possible, redaction can be used to blank out sensitive data within individual documents to make them suitable for release.
All information which is withheld, must be kept as per the exemptions contained within the FOI Act. In most cases, the reason for extended closure was the application of section 40 which is the personal information exemption of the FOI Act. This means that personal information can't be published as this would break the Data Protection principles.
Note that any file reference which ends with an ‘A’ means that an open part of a file has had certain information partly removed or blanked out due to a FOI Exemption.
What's usually published
More recently, PRONI publishes:
A full list of all files brought forward for release in a given year, containing:
- access decision
- PRONI reference number
- file covering dates
- short description (usually no more than one line)
- department file number
A highlights list of ‘opened’ files which may be of particular historical significance, containing:
- PRONI reference number
- file covering dates
- longer description (usually a paragraph)
- department file number