Archive for October, 2006

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Thunderer: This Man Must Be Watched

Tuesday, October 31st, 2006

The Times and Sunday Times published a series of articles over the last few days taking a critical look at the work of the Information Commissioner. The flagship piece was an interview with Richard Thomas, the incumbent commissioner, which dealt mainly with scares about government surveillance and criminals gaining access to your bank account.

The Sunday Times leader article picked up on one disturbing issue Mr Thomas steered well clear of in his interview – the tendency for politicians and other powerful figures to hide behind the Data Protection Act, turning the investigation of their dodgy dealings by journalists into a prisonable offence.

My article in the Times ‘Thunderer’ column highlighted a particular weakness of the Information Commissioner: his dependence on the patronage of the Department of Constitutional Affairs:

This man must be watched
The Times, Thunderer October 30, 2006
By Heather Brooke

The man who stands between us and Big Brother has just woken to the fact that we live in a surveillance society. Not before time. But what can Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, do to give us back some personal privacy away from the State’s prying eyes?

Not a lot. Mr Thomas told The Times on Saturday that he’s worried about the Government’s plan for total information convergence – the central control of records on every single child, our health, run-ins with the police, our DNA, taxes and identity.

It can’t be long before these data are used to target people in myriad ways. Already we have seen the Terrorism Act used to intimidate and arrest those who speak out against Government. How much easier it will be for politicians once they know everything about us, down to our cellular structure.

Mr Thomas’s pronouncements are few and cloaked in that mealy-mouthed deference common to bureaucrats – but to pick on him is to kick a kitten. Weak laws, weakly enforced are only partly his fault.

How I’d love to see someone with chutzpah become the next Information Commissioner. Someone such as Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney-general, who takes his role as populist protector seriously, taking on all comers from Merrill Lynch to Enron. If he were to discover banks leaving bags of statements on the pavement he’d do more than unleash a fusty press release.

But of course, in England, our regulators are neutered. The people cannot have real power, only the semblance of power. Mr Thomas must always have one eye on his political paymasters, for his position is closer to patronage than independence. His budget and staffing salaries are controlled by the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

That’s Cheeky Charlie Falconer’s department – the same man who wants to smother our new-born Freedom of Information Act. The Government has an interest in keeping the commissioner’s office weak. If it is underfunded and understaffed then it cannot hold the Government rigorously to account.

In Scotland the commissioner answers only to Parliament. So it should be in England. Without a fully independent information commissioner we can expect to find our privacy rights shredded at the expense of a Big Brother state.

Read all the articles:

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Posted in Freedom of Information | 2 Comments »

MPs’ Expenses

Monday, October 30th, 2006

The House of Commons Commission published MPs’ and Lords’ expenses on Thursday (26 October) generating a good deal of press coverage. I was live on Sky News debating with Grant Shapps the reasons why MPs should provide a more detailed breakdown of their expenses.

We’d been told the expenses would be published at the highly inconvenient time (for reporters) of 3.30pm that day. It was some poor hack’s job to keep pressing the ‘refresh’ button on the House of Commons website to see when they were published. In the end, they came out at 3.45pm.

Currently MPs only provide bulk figures in set categories for the entire year. As I’ve said before, such wholesale sums can hide a myriad of sins. For example, there is no way to tell if an MP is say, claiming for taxi journeys when he isn’t even in the county. It was only when Scotland moved to a detailed breakdown of its MSPs’ expenses that such abuse was revealed, leading to the resignation of Tory leader David McLetchie. Another MSP quit and several others had to pay back improper claims.

While Scotland steams ahead into the age of open government, Westminster continues to stubbornly refuse all FOI requests for a detailed breakdown of costs. I have three cases now pending against the House of Commons for a) travel expenses, b) additional costs allowance including mortgage payments, c) names and salaries of MPs’ staff. These are all at various stages of appeal.

The House of Commons Commission is fighting all disclosure. But as the government is fond of telling us every time it invades our privacy, surely if you’ve nothing to fear then you’ve nothing to hide. The sustained stubbornness with which MPs’ are refusing to account for spending public money fuels suspicion that the system is corrupt and poor value for money.

As Matthew Elliott of the Taxpayers’ Alliance told BBC News: “It’s not surprising people think politicians have got their snouts in the trough.”

As a further ruse to make it more difficult for the public to quickly get a sense of who spends the most, the Commons’ releases the expenses in a static, non-searchable PDF.

I have created a more user-friendly searchable Excel expenses chart with totals (135kb).

Press on MPs’ expenses

Evening Standard – Fury over Westminster Gravy Train

Information campaigner Heather Brooke, from the website Your Right to Know, says: “These people are paid for with our money and we have a right to know who they are and what they are doing.”

Guardian – MPs’ expenses claims hit record £86.8m

It’s not surprising that politicians think they can get away with these huge expense accounts because there’s no transparency in the system,” said Heather Brooke, a campaigner for open government and the author of Your Right to Know.

MPs’ expenses was also the main topic of conversation on last Thursday’s edition of Your Money on the fledgling internet television station 18 Doughty Street. In case you haven’t heard about it yet, this is one of the first internet TV stations in the UK, though they are fairly well established in the USA.

Posted in Freedom of Information, Politics | 11 Comments »

London Mayor’s appointment diary

Monday, October 30th, 2006

On Monday 23 October, the Evening Standard published a double-page spread based on documents I freed from the Mayor of London’s Office.

I made a Freedom of Information request for the Mayor’s appointment diary for the past financial year (March 2004-April 2005) and to Ken Livingstone‘s credit, I received 78 pages detailing the mayor’s meetings, lunches, celebrity networking, trips abroad and even a haircut and dentist appointment. I discovered the mayor’s favourite restaurant for meetings is Le Pont de la Tour. That may be trivial, but his favourite guest was Manny Lewis, the chief executive of the London Development Agency, which often gives some of its £400million budget towards funding Ken’s pet projects.

On the celebrity front, Ken attended a photo shoot with supermodel Caprice on 27 October, a fundraising dinner with Emma Thompson at English National Opera, had a phone chat with Bob Geldof and met with food guru Jamie Oliver and racing champion Sir Stirling Moss.

I also discovered that Ken met twice with Philip Anschutz, the American billionaire who wants to open a super casino in the Millennium Dome. Nine months later, what do we see but Ken giving his whole-hearted support for the Casino Advisory Panel to select the Dome as the nation’s first super casino.

Unfortunately, the Evening Standard has not placed the article on its electronic website, though you may request a copy from their office. Also, the Mayor’s Office has only provided a hard copy of the diary. If you are curious to see it for yourself then please contact the Mayor’s Office and ask for your own copy. Now that it is released it should be accessible to anyone, not just me.

Politicians’ appointment diaries are important because they show who they are meeting and also who they are NOT meeting. Who has influence and who doesn’t. This is useful to give an indication of the informal lobbying that goes on in public bodies.

One thing the Evening Standard article did not point out was the large number of meetings the Mayor had with Muslim ‘leaders’ and organisations – far exceeding the proportion of Muslims to the London population and more than any other religious or special interest group.

In conclusion, although I’ve not always been Ken’s biggest fan, I have to give him praise where it’s due and apart from not providing the informaton in electronic form as I had asked, his office handled my FOI request in a professional and diligent manner. Indeed, my opinion of the Mayor did actually improve after receiving his diary. Let other politicians take note.

Posted in Freedom of Information, Politics | 1 Comment »

Commons Early Day Motion on FOI fees

Wednesday, October 25th, 2006

Over 100 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion criticising the Goverment’s proposals to stifle your rights under the Freedom of Information Act.

Did your MP support this motion? Whether they did or not, consider writing to them and expressing your opinion about the proposed changes.

Remember, anyone in a position of power is a natural opponent of transparency and accountability. Politicians will only support Freedom of Information if they think their electorate is in favour. Please let them know.

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Freedom of information is better value than most government

Friday, October 20th, 2006

In a week when the Government is claiming that £35 million spent on answering FOI requests is a reason for curbing our right to know, it’s worth considering where that cost comes from. Of course, the figure is puffed up for propaganda purposes. But, as Computer Weekly reports, ministers are also happy to retain expensive lawyers in order to prevent documents being released from the Gateway review on ID cards.

The review was funded with our taxes, and the government is spending more of our taxes to deny us the right to see the results of our largess.

The review puts the cost of introducing this unwelcome intrusion into our lives at £5.4 billion. Compare that figure, and the collossal amounts wasted by the National Health Service, the Inland Revenue, the Ministry of Defence, and a myriad of bungling, spendthrift projects undertaken with little public scrutiny and oversight, and it’s clear that our right to know, in order to expose and criticise this waste, is a small cost well worth paying.

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Policing Islamic Protests

Thursday, October 19th, 2006

The recent hoohah over Muslim veils has prompted me to upload a request I made last Spring to the Metropolitan (London) police about the way they handle Islamic protests. You can find the documents on the Secret Squirrel page.

Any casual observer will note that the best, and seemingly the only way, to avoid arrest for protesting these days is to do so under the banner of Islam. You can wear a full balaclava and threaten to behead the pope outside Westminster Cathedral with a gang of your religious brethren and the police will stand idly by, but if you’re rash enough to protest as an upstanding, non-religious citizen who just cares about democracy, think again.

A couple of stories recently have highlighted the double standard in policing protests:

Daily Telegraph: Man arrested for wearing balaclava in veil protest 

Guardian: So many causes, so little time, in which comedian Mark Thomas demonstrates the draconian way police harass the common man who protests within 1km of Parliament. Mark was threatened with arrest by several police officers despite having valid permits for his protests.

Compare the above to these Islamic protests:

The Pope must die, says Muslim, Evening Standard – in which a mob of balaclava wearing Muslims with placards stating ’Behead all those who insult Islam’ gather outside Westminster Cathedral after Sunday Mass. There are many complaints from the public but no one arrested.

Cartoon protest slogans condemned, in which another mob converge on London after the Danish cartoon controversy and call for more violence. Police arrest no one at the time but after sustained public criticism they eventually arrest one man.  

What are we to learn from this blatant double standard? Simply that the more polite and non-violent you are, the greater the likelihood you will be abused by the state. 

http://www.yrtk.org/secret-squirrel/policing-islamic-protests

Posted in Crime & Justice, Freedom of Information | No Comments »

FOI in Parliament: 9 – 17 October 2006

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006

Here are some highlights from recent Parliamentary debate and answers:

17 October

Oral Answers to Questions – Constitutional Affairs

An interesting discussion yesterday about the Government’s proposed changes to the FOI law and why so many central government requests are managed by Ministers directly. The Government also revealed that the Information Commissioner’s office has received 4,292 cases since 1 January 2005, of which 30 per cent have related to central Government Departments and Agencies.

Written Answers: Vera Baird (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs)

“There were 4,293 requests made to Departments of State under the Freedom of Information Act during the second quarter of the 2006 calendar year. This represents a fall of 623 from the first quarter of the year, but an increase of 465 compared to same quarter of 2005.

There appears to be a slight increase in the underlying trend in Department of State request numbers. However, it is too early to be precise on this point, because year-on-year comparisons may be distorted by seasonal variations and atypical periods of activity.”

12 October

Written Answer: Bridget Prentice (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs)

“Between 1 January 2005 (when the Freedom of Information Act was introduced) and 10 October 2006 the lengths of time taken by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to reach decisions on requests for information under FOI legislation were:

(a) shortest = one day

(b) longest = 597 days

(c) mean (average) =118 days

All days are calendar days.

The Commissioner will shortly publish a report setting out the progress that the ICO has made in dealing with FOI complaints since the beginning of the financial year.”

9 October

Greg Hands MP asked whether the Government would designate the Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government as a public authority covered by the FOI law. Minister of State Harriet Harman said there were no plans to do so.

I might also mention that so far the Government has not once used its power under section 5 of the Act to add any new bodes to the Act’s coverage – despite the fact these bodies burn mountains of public cash.

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Fire Safety reports

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006

News at last! It’s only taken 18 months, but I had a call from an investigator at the Information Commissioner’s Office last week to say that the prohibition on disclosure that blocked the release of fire inspection reports (section 21 of the Fire Precautions Act 1971) was repealed by the new Fire Safety law that came into force 1 October 2006.

London Fire and Emergency Authority are now re-processing my request and they seem willing to release the data. Their main concern is whether the law provides retrospective acccess to data held before 1 October. Obviously I argue that it does, but they are currenty consulting their lawyers. Any lawyers out there who would care to comment on this please do so!

Background on my request can be read at:

http://www.yrtk.org/secret-squirrel/fire-safety-reports/

Posted in Crime & Justice, Politics | 2 Comments »

Statement from Parliamentary Committee Chairman

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006

The Chariman of the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, Rt Hon Alan Beith MP, issued the following statement about the Government’s response to the committee’s report: Freedom of Information – one year on.

“The Committee welcomes the fact that the Government says it does not intend to introduce a flat fee for all FOI requests. However we do not support the changes which the Government is minded to introduce.

“These would allow public authorities to include reading, consideration and consultation time in calculating the appropriate limit above which requests could be refused on cost grounds. This is a measure which is open to abuse by authorities. Authorities would have the discretion to decide how long they needed to consider whether to release information and we are concerned that requesters could be denied access to information whenever authorities considered it would take them too long to provide it.

“In the same way, if public authorities were permitted to aggregate requests made by any one requester for the purposes of calculating these limits, it could arbitrarily exclude otherwise legitimate requests, just because the requester was seeking other information from that authority at the same time.”

“These changes, if implemented, would fly in the face of the Government’s stated desire of encouraging an open culture and have the potential to block important requests where it would be in the public interest to disclose information. I reiterate the Committee’s opinion that we see no need to change the FOI Fees Regulations.”

“We will be reviewing in more detail the other issues covered in the Government’s Response.”

The Committee’s report is available on the Committee’s website at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmconst/991/991.pdf

The Government’s response, published today, is at: http://www.dca.gov.uk/foi/reference/constitutionalAffairsCommittee.htm

Committee Membership is as follows: Rt Hon Alan Beith MP (Chairman), James Brokenshire MP, David Howarth MP, Siân James MP, Piara S Khabra MP, Jessica Morden MP, Julie Morgan MP, Andrew Tyrie MP, Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP, Dr Alan Whitehead MP, Jeremy Wright MP

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Freedom of information under fire

Tuesday, October 17th, 2006

The Labour Government yesterday unveiled the results of its review of the FOI law. It’s bad enough that a review of government openness is conducted in total secrecy but now we discover that politicians have also forked out £75,000 to private company Frontier Economics to justify curtailing the public’s right to know.

The report by Frontier Economics picks through tens of thousands of requests to focus on eight that it believes are silly and waste time and money. It then uses these eight as the basis for shutting down the FOI regime. This is ludicrous. Will the government next consider closing down all public information lines for the sake of one or two awkward customers?

Charlie Falconer, the Lord Chancellor claims the report is independent, though the company’s brief has been to justify curtailing FOI. There is no research done on the millions of pounds saved through timely exposure from FOI. Nor is there an accounting of the money wasted by officials who refuse to answer requests and instead spend taxpayer money on lawyers and staff who obstruct the process.

Transparency is finally exposing the woefully inefficient and incompetent bureaucracy that exists in many public services. If it takes on average 7.5 hours to answer a simple FOI request, as this report states, that is more an indictment of the inefficiencies that have grown up in the culture of secrecy rather than a criticism of openness. Why has the government not commissioned a study to reveal the overwhelming costs of secrecy? Huge sums have been squandered on the NHS IT system, the fiasco of the Child Support Agency, the Criminal Records Bureau, Wembley Stadium, the Tube PFI, and the BSE crisis.

Frontier Economics is also not quite so independent as we’re led to believe. The company board includes none other than former Cabinet Secretary Sir Andrew Turnbull, who as head of the Civil Service was no friend of open government.

The Government Response rejects all of the key recommendations made by the Department of Constitutional Affairs Parliamentary Select Committee including:

  • Rec. 20 Fees – The committee said there should be no change to the fee structure. The Government rejected this and wants to include reading time, consideration time and consultation time in the calculation of the appropriate limit (£600) above which requests could be refused on cost grounds. This would have the net result of blocking all those but the most superficial and frivolous requests – exactly the ones the Government claims are a waste!
  • Rec. 14 and 15 – The Committee found there were excessive delays by public authorities and there should be set time limits for the public interest extension and internal review. The Government rejected this view.
  • Rec. 16 – The Committee said the Central Clearinghouse that controls the release of controversial information needs to be more transparent in its working and publish quarterly statistics. The Government rejected this view.
  • Rec 21 – The Committee thought the Information Commissioner was compromised by his direct dependence on the DCA and recommended he be made directly accountable to Parliament rather than DCA as is the case for the Scottish Commissioner. The Government rejected this view.

The Government also wants to aggregate requests made by any legal person, (or persons apparently acting in concert, to each public authority (e.g. Government Department) for the purposes of calculating the appropriate limit. This could mean that all requests from the ‘BBC’ or a campaign group would be grouped together, making it impossible to conduct any kind of searching investigation.
You can read all the reports on the DCA website.

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