Once it championed freedom of information – now it’s just plain obstructive, says richard brooks |
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Just as the Prime Minister announces his 'data sharing' plans to help the state learn more about us, the Government is doing everything it can to stop us knowing too much about them.
Two years after introducing the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA), ostensibly to shine a light on the workings of government, the era of openness has proved short-lived. In a matter of weeks, the law will be all but neutered with some delicate statutory surgery.
In opposition, New Labour long argued for a revolution in the contract between the Government and the electorate. But, come 1997, the reality of governing - especially for a party intent on news management - forced a rethink. Labour ministers and spin doctors, not to mention congenitally secretive civil servants, found they didn't like opening up to
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| Behind the Lord Chancellor’s bombast, Whitehall did everything it could to withhold sensitive information |
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the electorate. It took many years of agitating, led by the Campaign for Freedom of Information, before the FoIA was conceived. Only in 2005 did statutory public access to official information become a reality.
"The need-to-know culture has been replaced by a statutory right to know," proclaimed the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer (left), in January 2005, as he invited citizens to put their questions to government and public authorities across the country.
One year later, he hailed the law's early success and projected Britain as a beacon of democratic accountability.
"The culture of secrecy in Whitehall - and beyond - is creaking open," he said.
Behind Falconer's bombast, however, Whitehall was doing everything it could to withhold sensitive information by exploiting the numerous 'exemptions' it had carefully planted in the law. For example, it can refuse to release any information that has been given to ministers in the form of policy advice. However, such refusals must be "in the public interest" and the final say on this goes 
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