September 6: Why Tony Blair is wrong about FOI
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"You
idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop. There is
really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is
adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it."
So, is Tony Blair's assessment of the
Freedom of Information Act his government
introduced right or valid?
I know there will be some Conservative politicians at
County Hall who will be shaking their heads in
agreement with the former PM - and that's an unusual consensus.
For Blair, FOI has been a mistake because it has been used by
the media rather than the public, for which it was primarily
intended (which rather overlooks the fact that the public look to
the media to act as a public watchdog).
He claims in his autobiography: "For political leaders, it's
like saying to someone who is hitting you over the head with a
stick, 'Hey, try this [FOI] instead', and handing them a
mallet."
Of course, as a politican in opposition, he had completely
different opinions as you can read here.
At that point, greater access to information was all about
forging a new partnership between government and the public it was
there to serve.
I am a regular user of FOI and it won't come as a surprise to
hear that I believe it has proved genuinely helpful in providing
voters - yes, and journalists - with a powerful tool
with which to hold public bodies to account.
One of the very first FOI requests I made was to Kent
county council asking for information about visits made by
councillors and officers abroad and why they had gone.
We were provided with a vast amount of information which I
readily concede provided us with a good old fashioned scoop as we
detailed how various individuals had travelled to the
furthest-flung corners of the globe on assorted fact-finding
visits.
Why
Blair has got it wrong on FOI: read this piece by Maurice Frankel
of the Campaign for Freedom of Information here>>>
I cannot think that - prior to the FOI Act - there would have
been any way in which any of this information would have been
provided to me (or indeed anyone else) by the council had I
requested it. Yet who would argue that it wasn't in the public
interest?
We have made this request several times over the years under FOI
and there has been an interesting trend. Each year, the number of
international visits has gone down, as has the amount of taxpayers'
money being spent on them.
Now, there may be some people - I can think of one or two - who
regard it as rather unfortunate that there is less foreign travel
being undertaken by our elected members and officers but I suspect
they will be in a minority.
You could argue that the moves towards forcing councils and
others towards publishing more detail about the earnings of senior
officials have their origin in FOI. Had it not been for various
requests made for such data - and the frequent refusals by certain
authorities including KCC - I doubt very much whether the
government would have taken steps to introduce legislation
compelling the disclosure of senior officers and civil
servants.
And the whole expenses scandal involving MPs began with an FOI
request.
Councils and others often complain they are wasting time and
money on dealing with 'pointless' requests with no real purpose. Of
course, that makes a presumption about what they believe is valid
or legitimate.
But good authorities who are genuinely committed to transparency
have shown that there is a way of minimising the burden through
simple measures such as much more routine publication of
information. If the information is already out there, there's no
requirement to deal with it under FOI.
The problem is that council officers who are genuinely keen on
transparency come up against politicians who are dead set against
it because it means they must relinquish control of information
they consider "theirs"rather than "ours".
Blair's despair at ever having introduced FOI is in effect, the
most powerful argument that can be made in support of it.
Monday, September 06 2010
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