Cabinet could be asked to approve drafting instructions for public access to information legislation "very, very soon", according to the civil servant who helped write Bermuda's discussion paper on the topic.

Kimberley McKeown, a policy analyst at Government's Central Policy Unit (CPU), told The Royal Gazette that a memorandum could be placed before Cabinet in the next couple of months, moving PATI a step closer to becoming law.

The news gives a huge boost to this newspaper's A Right to Know: Giving People Power campaign which was launched yesterday and which calls for a more open, accountable government.

Ms McKeown explained that if Cabinet approves the instructions they would be passed to the Attorney General's Chambers so that the law could be drawn up.

At that stage, government lawyers would begin checking for any potential legal problems and consulting with CPU on the exact details of the bill. A date is then set for it to be tabled in the House of Assembly, where it could be passed as drafted or with amendments.

Ms McKeown agreed that the PATI project — initiated by Alex Scott when he was Premier — had been delayed since the discussion paper was published in the summer of 2005.

But she said: "It should go to Cabinet very, very soon. We have not been told anything like that the Premier is not interested or he doesn't want it.

"This is a civil service issue in terms of finding the resources. It's a bureaucracy and things take time. One thing that we were cognizant of from the very beginning was trying to something well and do something right so that it would work and work well. There was a decision to try to be as thorough as possible. I know jurisdictions that have basically copied other legislation. We didn't do that at all."

Ms McKeown, who provided this newspaper with detailed information on the progress of PATI earlier this month, said the CPU undertook a huge amount of research internationally before writing the discussion paper in order to try to avoid the pitfalls other countries had suffered. The Cayman Islands, which passed a freedom of information law last August, was consulted and other small countries such as Jamaica, Ireland and Trinidad and Tobago were considered.

She admitted that though hundreds of people requested copies of the discussion paper, the public consultation only resulted in about five written responses. "We worked hard to get comments but unfortunately we didn't get that many substantive comments," she said. "We got a lot of people supporting the concept and the idea. Certainly, we were also looking for specific suggestions for change."

She said internal consultation in government led to generally supportive feedback though some were concerned about how it would be implemented and the burden it would create on government. "We were told in other jurisdictions that it is a burden on bureaucracy," she admitted. "That was the most common concern (here)."

Ms McKeown said bringing in PATI could be costly for a small jurisdiction like Bermuda but added it could definitely be worth it, arguing that such a law could be effective for "the purpose of really helping people to make informed decisions and participate in the political process"

She urged citizens who want to see PATI brought in to make their views known. "It's valuable for people to have information that affects them personally. The goal of public access is for it not to be arbitrary and for everyone to have the same right.

"People sometimes forget that society needs to play a role in terms of people actually pushing, lobbying and advocating. I might not individually agree with what people are looking for but to get out there and participate in society is certainly a good thing. Certainly we would have appreciated having more comments."