End this culture of secrecy

Published on Thursday 8 March 2007 01:37

MORE than 17 years ago, the Westminster parliament passed a law that opened courts so that non-lawyers could conduct litigation in certain circumstance - but this legislation has never been put into effect in Scotland.

When a member of the public sought to know why ministers had never implemented what is, after all, the law of the land, his request under the Freedom of Information Act was rejected. The Executive claimed that certain classes of documents were automatically exempt from FoI requests, including advice to ministers.

But the Freedom of Information Act contains no such blanket exemptions, as was pointed out by the Scottish Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion. The act specifies that the content of every requested document has to be examined on its merits. This view was upheld by the Court of Session in January, when the Executive appealed against Mr Dunion's ruling that the relevant papers had to be made public.

The interesting aspect of this affair is the light it throws on the attitude held by the Executive and the senior ranks of the Civil Service regarding the public's access to information. Despite the advent of FoI - which says all documents should be available unless a case can be proved otherwise in terms of harm to the public interest - the powers that be still think in terms of veiling whole categories of information from the light of day. We might call this a culture of secrecy, and it still pervades the corridors of St Andrew's House and city chambers throughout Scotland.

But is this culture of secrecy any worse in Scotland than in England? The answer appears to be yes, according to statistics revealed in the latest annual report from the Scottish Information Commissioner, published today. This shows that appeals to the commissioner - against refusals by the Executive and other bodies to release information - are running at twice the number per head of population than in England.

Why should things be worse in Scotland, despite the advent of devolution? Partly, it may be an institutional slowness north of the Border in setting up the mechanics to publish information on request. However, there seems also to be a "we know best" mentality among politicians and civil servants - a hangover from the old days before devolution, when St Andrew's House ran Scotland like a colonial outpost.

Whoever forms the next Executive must end this culture of secrecy. More senior civil servants need to be recruited or seconded from business and the voluntary sector, to break down the "we know best" attitudes. Holyrood back-bench committees have to prioritise making the Executive more accountable. And the next Executive has to start learning to trust the people of Scotland.