This morning I happened to be at home. This was fortunate because I was able to take delivery of a decision notice sent by registered mail by the Information Commissioner. If I hadn’t been here – and usually I’m not – I would have been ignorant that my case seeking a detailed breakdown of MPs’ Additional Costs Allowance had finally – after a year’s wait – been decided.

But that’s not actually true. I would have known about the decision because a press release was already written and on its way to all the news wires. The Commissioner’s private PR firm (paid for with taxpayer money I might add) had already been briefed on the controversial decision (unlike me) and their press strategy was already underway before any of us complainants knew our cases had even been decided.

Clearly this is regulation by press release. As the complainant who brought this case, I have a right to be informed first about how my case was decided. Instead I have to hear about it from the news wires.

This is not the first time this has happened. Decisions on my cases for the Attorney General’s advice on the Iraq War and the names and salaries of MPs’ staff were published before I’d ever received the Commissioner’s Decision Notices.

There seems a blatant double standard where the public bodies that are regulated by the Information Commissioner are given every courtesy and informed in advance of upcoming decisions and their contents, particularly where they are controversial. But the public are treated like the cheated-upon spouse – we are the last to know.

The Information Commissioner’s own guidelines state that: “He will give both Departments and complainants a reasonable period of time to digest the Notice before himself making the Decision Notice publicly available.” [Memorandum of Understanding] Page 6, section 23. At the FOI Live conference on 16th June 2005, Richard Thomas announced that his policy was to wait 48 hours before publishing decisions.

Clearly the Commissioner is not living up to his own guidelines. If he spent as much energy dealing with his backlog of cases rather than his press strategy then maybe he wouldn’t have such bad press in the first place.

FYI
My request was made 20 March 2006 to the House of Commons Commission. I asked for an itemised breakdown of all MPs’ Additional Costs Allowances for the most recent financial year. Later, I agreed to narrow the request to 10 MPs who were: Tony Blair, David Cameron, Menzies Campbell, Gordon Brown, George Osborne, John Prescott, George Galloway, Margaret Beckett, William Hague and Mark Oaten.

The decision notice is case reference FS50124671. I will be posting up the decision and the ICO’s press release issued this morning shortly.