Why we need the Freedom of Information Act

Last autumn, the Government sent up a new Cabinet Committee called Misc 33 to examine the future of the Post Office network. It was chaired by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister.
In the week in which the Government has confirmed the closure of 2,500 post offices, the following written exchange took place in the Mother of Parliaments:
Bob Russell [Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester]: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister on how many occasions in the last 12 months he has chaired meetings to consider issues relating to the future of the Post Office network.
The Deputy Prime Minister [John Prescott]: I meet regularly with colleagues to discuss a range of issues.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 3:57 pm and is filed under British current affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

One Comment

  • Nick
    May 19th, 2007 at 9:10 pm

    It is simply appalling that the Commons has just voted to exempt itself from its own Freedom of Information Act, on what seem to me to be totally spurious grounds. It is no wonder that there is so much cynicism about politicians.
    Nor is this the only recent attack on FOI; see Need to know and Debate rages over future of FOI for details of recent proposed amendments on how the cost of FOI requests is calculated, and on “aggregation” of requests. The net effect of both amendments would be to reduce the proportion of FOI requests that are answered.
    Free access to governmental information is an important part of democracy; a better informed population can cast better informed votes. The default position ought to be that all information is available, unless there is a very good reason (such as national security) why it should not be. The financial cost of ensuring this is quite small. From Debate rages over future of FOI, above:

    The Government claims that these measures are merely an attempt to keep costs under control. But a review commissioned by it suggests that the annual cost of the Act, across the whole public sector, including the cost of the Information Commissioner and Tribunal, is no more than £35 million.
    These restrictions would save £10 million a year, a tiny sum compared with the damage that would be inflicted. For comparison, the National Audit Office has just highlighted potential Whitehall savings of £660 million a year from more careful purchasing of office supplies.