[reposted from my LinkedIn account]
This is one of the most extraordinary FOIA judgments I’ve ever seen, and it says an awful lot about the approach to transparency at the centre of the civil service.
The Cabinet Office have been trying to resist disclosure under FOIA of copies of blank ministerial declaration of interest forms, on grounds that to do so would be prejudicial to the conduct of public affairs, because among other things [checks notes] “Disclosure may lead to speculative scrutiny regarding why certain elements are included in the forms, potentially leading to amendments to the form which undermines its effectiveness”.
But there’s also an extraordinary citation of a piece of evidence given by a Cabinet Office witness – the “Director of Propriety and Ethics” – to the effect that the system for Minister declaring interests relies heavily on the trust and candour of Ministers, and the effect of disclosure would be that they “may be reluctant to provide the same level of detail” than they do currently.
Let’s just think about that. Ministers have a constitutional and ethical duty to declare interests, but this relies on trust and candour, and disclosure of a blank declaration form might mean that those we trust to be candid in their ethical duty to declare those interests might decide to be less trustworthy and candid as a result? What a sorry state of affairs.
Fortunately, the Information Tribunal, like the Information Commissioner’s Office before, had no truck with these arguments, and refused the Cabinet Office’s appeal.
The views in this post (and indeed most posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.
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