28 Aug 2009 | Uncategorized
Over at Your Right To Know, the estimable Heather Brooke, whose freedom of information work did so much to expose the scandal of MPs expenses, details a bizarre demand from the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
Brooke had testified to the committee on 30 June, and also given a written submission. The submission was subsequently published on Brooke’s site and on the committees.
But earlier this week, she received an email stating:
Dear Ms Brooke
Our lawyers have advised us not publish your submission due to the following reason:
“it contains statements about named individuals which are potentially defamatory.”
We are currently seeking their clarification and requesting suitable redaction.
Once we have this, I will forward them to you for your authority, in writing, to the redaction. We will then be able to publish your submission.
Anju Still
Business Manager
Committee on Standards in Public Life
The evidence had, indeed, disappeared from the committee’s site.
Brooke today received a letter from the committee, suggesting she redact certain parts of the submission published on her site. You can read the submission here, with suggestion redactions in bold).
There seems to be no evidence that anyone actually wants to sue Brooke for any part of her submission. As she put it to Index, we are witnessing a “culture of proactive self-censorship. They are not even waiting for a complaint but predicting possible complaints.”
Furthermore, how can the committee conduct its business, if people cannot report to it without any protection from potential defamation proceedings?
Curiouser and curiouser.
22 Jul 2009 | Uncategorized
Kent Police are to publish a report on the controversial police tactics at last summer’s climate camp at Kingsnorth power station, following pressure from the Home Office. But an earlier, buried report, which I wrote about here, will still not be published, in spite of an apparent pledge by policing minister David Hanson to publish both reports.
Liberal Democrat shadow justice secretary David Howarth has criticised Hanson for making an announcement as Parliament went into recess and for failing to honour a promise by his predecessor, Vernon Coaker, to share the findings of the first report, which was undertaken by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA).
In a written parliamentary statement released on Tuesday 21 July, Hanson announced that Kent Police would publish the second report, which he said was “overseen” by the NPIA and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), (on Wednesday). As Index revealed in May, the force commissioned this report from South Yorkshire police in March, because it did not like the findings of the original report.
I understand that both reports are likely to be critical of Kent Police. But if the report published on Wednesday is seen to pull its punches, it will provoke suspicions that the earlier report was buried because it did not.
Two weeks ago, Hanson, who replaced Coaker in the recent reshuffle, told MPs that the NPIA, Kent Police and the Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) had looked at police tactics at Kingsnorth. Hanson said: “I will receive shortly, and will publish for the House, reports on those issues, and I will look at what lessons can be learned.”
It is clear that the reference to Kent Police related to the South Yorkshire police report. HMIC is conducting a major review of the policing of protest, which will look at Kingsnorth but will be published towards the end of the year. This suggests that Hanson promised, perhaps inadvertently, to publish the NPIA original report.
But the Home Office will still not say whether it has obtained a copy of the NPIA report or plans to get hold of it. Hanson has ignored two requests from Howarth to discuss the issue. Last month he replied to a written parliamentary question from Howarth by reference to the second report, which he said was “due to report in June”.
Howarth told Index: “It is highly suspicious that the second report is coming out during the parliamentary recess, when it cannot be properly scrutinised.
“It is also deeply puzzling that the Minister made no reference to the original report, and disappointing that he has not agreed to a meeting to discuss these unresolved issues.”
Hanson also told MPs two weeks ago that he had “raised in a letter to Kent police of 24 June the need for me to see their report of the incidents at Kingsnorth”. He added that Kent’s chief constable, Michael Fuller, had assured him that he intended to publish the report.
As I write this, I am waiting for the NPIA to decide whether to release its original report under the freedom of information act. The NPIA has made clear that it will take close account of the views of Kent Police. The idea that it is a matter for Kent police if they want to bury the original report on Kingsnorth seems to echo the Home Office position, which clearly does not apply to the second report. We may find out soon why that is.
Update: Kent police actually published both the South Yorkshire Police report and the original NPIA report last week. Both are critical of the policing operation and in particular the blanket use of stop and search tactics. In spite of claims that it was being amended, the NPIA report was last updated on 5 March. Although the final version has now been published, my freedom of information request covers all drafts of the NPIA report.
20 Jul 2009 | Index Index, minipost
The Ministry of Justice has announced plans to incorporate only four new bodies in the Freedom of Information Act after lengthy consultation. These include the Association of Chief Police Officers, Academy schools, the Financial Ombudsman Service and UCAS. Companies that provide public services will not be brought within the Act, a decision The Campaign for Freedom of Information have said is extremely disappointing given the growing role the private sector had in providing public services. Read more here
10 Jun 2009 | Uncategorized
Gordon Brown’s promise today to extend freedom of information is welcome, but how much difference will it make? FOI needs to be deepened, not widened, if it is truly to hold power to account.
In Parliament today, Gordon Brown paid tribute to the “vital role transparency has played in sweeping aside the discredited system of allowances, and holding power to account”. Consequently, he argued, “we should do more to spread the culture and practice of freedom of information.”
What is clear from the expenses scandal is that FOI is pretty well untouchable just now, even if it was a leak that did the real damage. After the House of Commons authorities failed in their bid to keep MPs’ claims under wraps and a group of MPs had to drop a plan to exempt themselves, any attempt to restrict the public’s right to know will not get very far.
But neither are things moving very far in the other direction. Brown’s promise that Justice Secretary Jack Straw will look at broadening the application of FOI to include new bodies that spend public money is not new and is an easy pledge to make at virtually no cost to to central government.
What would be more impressive would be a commitment from ministers that they will release more information themselves. But in vetoing the release of the pre-Iraq war cabinet minutes, despite rulings from the Information Commissioner and information tribunal, Straw has shown that holding power to account has its limits.
Instead of undermining the enforcement process, Brown and Straw should be strengthening it, for example by increasing the powers and resources available to the Information Commissioner to crack down on abuses.
As a recent study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism showed, the response of ministers and civil servants to FOI is a perpetual game of cat and mouse to prevent — or delay — embarrassing disclosures. There are so many exemptions that finding reasons not to be transparent is child’s play. While Brown and Straw talk up FOI, government officials are strangling the life out of it.
Four years since FOI came into force, I recently experienced the most blatantly obstructive tactics I have seen yet. I asked for a copy of a letter that Colin Matthews, chief executive of airport owner BAA sent Geoff Hoon, then transport secretary, lobbying for the expansion of Heathrow. The Department for Transport refused to disclose the document, on the grounds that BAA had issued a press release that included “the substance of the letter”.
It should go without saying that if we have to be satisfied with the version of events put out by spin doctors, instead of finding out what really happened, freedom of information is meaningless.
Similarly, while Brown’s pledge to get Tim Berners-Lee to help government “drive the opening up of access to government data in the web” is welcome, it will be of little use if government only opens up the data that it wants people to have. Direct access to the information that we want would be truly revolutionary, but without a complete change in the culture of government, the tendency to bury bad news will prevail.
And on the third part of Brown’s pledge the story is the same. The 30-year rule will become a 20-year rule (not 15 as Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre recommended) but, of course, “there will be protection of Royal Family and Cabinet papers”. Brown may say that the exemptions will be strictly limited, but it’s the exemptions that undermine the rule. Once again, freedom of information on the government’s terms, when it suits them, looks like the order of the day.
