The Smoke Filled Room

Since my post 'On the Question of Bank Signatories' appeared several new blogs have sprung into existence, two of which take the same general line, namely, that the information contained in the post was in some way confidential or restricted. I'll comment on an extract from one of these new blogs posted by Llamedos (A fan of Dylan Thomas or Terry Pratchett?).

Quote:

"Broadcasting information of a restricted nature in any other organisation is called ‘leaking’.

Does it now mean that no council matter can remain confidential. If information has not been mentioned or discussed in a session open to the public and press then it is confidential and should remain so until it becomes mentioned at an open council meeting."

I'm sorry to have to drag you into the 21st Century, Llamedos, but in these days of 'Open Government' and the Freedom of Information Act very little information in the possession of the Council is either restricted or confidential.

This is a verbatim extract from Dept of Constitutional Affairs website.

"The Freedom of Information Act came into force on 1 January 2005.

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, anybody may request information from a public authority which has functions in England, Wales and/or Northern Ireland. The Act confers two statutory rights on applicants:

• To be told whether or not the public authority holds that information; and if so,
• To have that information communicated to them."

Now this is a very simplistic summary of the Act but it means that, with certain very limited exceptions, which the Act defines, no information held by the Council can be deemed either restricted or confidential and thus withheld from the public and press and certainly the Council cannot arbitrarily decide that a piece of information is restricted and it doesn't need to be discussed in open Council before it is released. Even if a particular piece of information is covered by one of the permitted exemptions there is still the requirement to apply a test of 'public interest' which means that if it can be shown to be in the public interest to reveal it then it must be revealed. The days of conducting Council business behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms should be a thing of the past. I would also be interested to know why you think this information should have remained 'confidential'. Don't you think the Community have a right to know? This affair will no doubt cause more than a little embarrassment to individual councillors, the ex-Clerk and indeed, the Council as a whole, but that is no reason to suppress the information.