IN MARCH the Guardian newspaper won a ten-year battle to gain access to Prince Charles’s private letters to ministers, under freedom of information (FOI) laws. The revelations failed to bring about a constitutional crisis: Charles’s meddling memos ranged from the worthy (complaints about soldiers’ lack of kit) to the esoteric (a plea to help save the Patagonian toothfish). But the disclosure of the heir to the throne’s letters set in train a move to curtail FOI powers, which could end up reducing transparency in government.

The FOI Act came into force in 2005, allowing anyone to request information from an estimated 100,000 public authorities. Tony Blair, the prime minister who introduced the law, later berated himself for his naivety, saying he was an “irresponsible nincompoop...I quake at the imbecility of it.” The act has proved exceedingly useful to journalists and campaigners, who have uncovered scandals on delayed ambulances, snooping local councils, Taser-happy policemen and much else.

But the government worries that the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the publication of Charles’s letters set a precedent that could undermine the ministerial veto that was included in the act. So it has set up a cross-party commission to consider changes to the law on FOI; its call for evidence will close on November 20th and a report is due before the end of the year.

Freedom of information campaigners are pessimistic. The five members of the commission are not renowned as defenders of transparency. The questions they have set themselves point towards a curtailment of the act. Last month Chris Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons, accused journalists of misusing FOI to “generate stories”. Two weeks ago the government floated the idea of removing universities from the provisions of the act.

Two changes seem most likely. First, the government may move to strengthen its veto. This follows not only the Supreme Court’s judgment (which ruled that the government’s decision to veto the publication of information had to be well argued, rather than merely rational), but also concerns that FOI has harmed ministers’ and civil servants’ consideration of policy, by introducing the fear that their ruminations will later be made public. Second, it may try to lighten the administrative burden on those answering requests for information.

Are such changes necessary? Ministers may moan, but “it is very hard to find any firm evidence of the effect on the running of government,” says Ben Worthy of Birkbeck University. Although there has been a move away from note-taking in government, this could just as well be due to fear of leaks, as well as the growth of unminuted “sofa government” during the Blair years. A study by the Constitution Unit at University College London in 2010 found little evidence of any chilling effect on government communication. And concerns about the erosion of a “safe space” for policy discussion are overblown, since adjudication over whether to release information takes into account the need for collective decision-making when determining where the public interest lies.

Although estimates of the cost of FOI vary, Britain’s system appears to be cheaper per request than others. Some people do abuse the act: the Ministry of Defence has had to spend time answering questions about paranormal activity, and the Cabinet Office once fielded an inquiry about preparations for zombie attacks (a civil servant had to “make sure that the [office] that deals with contingencies does not actually have anything”, an official complained). But a parliamentary committee found that frivolous requests presented only a “very small” problem. And, as Lord Hennessy has noted, all citizens have a right to know what their government is up to—“even the most difficult fruitcakes”.

Deterring timewasters could put off other, more useful inquiries. One option under consideration, a small fee for requests, would have a prohibitive effect, says Carolyne Willow, a campaigner who made hundreds of FOI requests to expose the abuse of children in custody. Even a £10 ($15) charge would have ruled out such an approach, she says. Another option would be to reduce the amount of time that institutions are obliged to spend answering requests. But as Maurice Frankel, a transparency advocate, notes, such limits do not take into account the public interest in seeing the request fulfilled.

In 2012 the House of Commons Justice Committee praised the FOI Act as “a significant enhancement of our democracy”. And despite the signs that the government will seek to curtail the act, its supporters need not despair. Since its introduction a decade ago there have been four attempts to scale it back. Fierce opposition has ensured that only one—to introduce an exemption for the monarch and next-in-line—has succeeded. With its slim majority, the government may yet add another failure to the list.