Freedom of Information requests are a pain. That is the whole point of them.

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My colleagues at the Local Government Association have decided they want something done about Freedom of Information requests:

Freedom of information requests are a ‘burden’ on local authorities, and their use should be subject to tighter controls according to council leaders. The Local Government Association (LGA) has suggested fees for requests should be introduced and the time councils have to spend responding to them lowered from 18 hours to eight

No. Just no. The whole point about the Freedom of Information Act is that it provides the means for the public to hold the bureaucrats, technocrats and politicians to account. And this is because that information held by local councils is public information - meaning that the public should have access to said information. As a matter of right not as some big favour granted them by some stuck-up bureaucrat.

If Councils are bothered about Freedom of Information requests being a burden, then the proper response isn't to dream up some cod 'public interest' test but the make a whole lot more information publicly available, accessible and searchable. If you do that then the public doesn't have to go to the trouble of crafting requests that the Council responds to - instead they can go directly to the data they need.
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West Yorkshire's political leaders don't want to tell you about their plans for devolution

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I'm a member of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority's Overview & Scrutiny Committee and this morning (through the post rather than by electronic means) I received a document that you good folk don't even know exists. It's entitled:

Northern Devolution: West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership Joint Response

You don't know about this document or the proposals it contains because, for reasons that entirely escape me, the covering letter accompanying the report is headed:

Private and Confidential - Not for Public Circulation

I'm assuming that the proposals are marked as confidential because of the words 'negotiating document'. This is the pitch from our politicians up here in Yorkshire to those politicians down there in London. Now it's true that Calderdale Council at least had a debate about devolution but other than this there has been no public discussion of the issues involved - what the geography should be, what powers might be devolved, what it means for the broader issue of England's democratic deficit and how any devolved arrangements should be governed.

What we have here is a summation of the problems we face with politics and why so many people are so fed up with us politicians. These are proposals for a very substantial change to government in West Yorkshire yet it hasn't be subject to consultation, let alone any recognisable process to secure a democratic mandate. The proposals are significant but have been agreed by a small group of Councillors meeting in secret plus a few select business folk who have been appointed (by those same councillors) to the board of the local economic partnership.

You the public are not to be trusted with any role or say in this matter. These leaders want to determine the governance themselves (in which case it will be a cosy secondary body that isn't directly elected or noticeably accountable) and through this to secure control of several billion pounds a year of public funding in West Yorkshire. All done in secret.

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Undertanding how local government works. A lesson in making secret decisions

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Let me introduce you to the Association of West Yorkshire Authorities (can link to their website but it was down just now):

The AWYA is an association of the five West Yorkshire metropolitan local authorities – Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield. It was established in 1993 to provide a forum for the discussion and co-ordination of matters of mutual concern and interest.

The AWYA acts as the local government voice of West Yorkshire, promoting and lobbying for its interests and identity. It provides a means for the five Councils to reach joint views on proposed legislation and other matters of concern to West Yorkshire, and to express these views to organisations such as the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly (YHA), Local Government Yorkshire and the Humber (LGYH), central government and other appropriate bodies.

The AWYA also works to secure greater accountability and effective working relationships with bodies which impact upon the sub-region, such as the Government Office for Yorkshire and the Humber (GOYH), Yorkshire Forward, Yorkshire and Humber Assembly (YHA), the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), and the Strategic Health Authority (SHA).

This is a decision-making body, funded from the public purse. Just minutes ago I got an e-mail from a colleague saying this:

I have contacted the association they do not publish minutes or agendas

So I rang them and was told that the AWYA:

Does not meet in public so doesn't publish its agendas and minutes.

If we ask for them we can be sent them but they can't publish these papers because there is a "resourcing issue". However, when pressed, they told me that they have never published agendas or minutes.

So this organisation - chaired by Bradford's Labour leader - can make decisions, for example about £850 million of possible transport spending, in secret and without the decision being published.

Transparency?
 
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Shocking...

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“upon the first and second Respondents agreeing that they will make no further disclosure in respect of this matter to any third party, including in particular the media and John Hemmings MP.”

I am struck dumb by the enormity of this statement - and many others.

Read Anna Raccoon's fuller piece and if you've an hour spare read John Hemming's full address to Committee.

It really is shocking.

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Secrecy is inevitable and probably necessary

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Secrecy is necessary.

I don’t say this as some form of defence for authoritarian government, for the gagging of journalists or to defend “national security”. These are spurious explanations for secrecy.

No, we need secrecy. And shall have that secrecy.

To illustrate, let me tell you a story about a former colleague, now an MP. Whenever there was something he wanted to say – a discussion needed – he would suggest we went for a walk. At the time, I assumed that the reason was to allow us a talk and smoke – but now I realise that the point was to avoid being overheard and to ensure that anything said was unattributable. Secrecy was protected since only the two of us knew what was said and, as importantly, every thing said was deniable. I know a great deal about that former colleague.

The theft of diplomatic cables and their transfer to a third party has been lauded by some as a kind of ultimate freedom of information success. Yet if we stop and think for a minute or two, we’ll realise that the result of these ‘leaks’ – the consequence of insecure systems – will be to end the documentation of opinion and analysis. This creates a less transparent, riskier and more corruptible policy and decision-making process. We have seen the degree to which our masters are trustworthy and having a yet more opaque system would act only to increase the opportunity for self-interest and greed to dominate choices made by politicians, civil servants and other public servants.

You may revel in this new age of open-ness – where theft is excusable because of some cod interpretation of public interest. But we will all pay for it since the response of governments will be to make undocumented decisions wherever possible. We will become a land governed even more by tittle-tattle, back-stabbing and slander rather than an more open, more democratic society.

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