SNP slam ‘rogue’ Cabinet Office as probe into UK Government transparency starts
BORIS Johnson’s Cabinet Office is “a rogue department” which is “antipathetic” to public scrutiny a senior SNP frontbencher has said as he submits evidence to a Commons inquiry into how the Cabinet Office handles Freedom of Information requests.
Tommy Sheppard, the SNP MP and the party’s spokesman on the constitution, has been involved in a two year-long battle with the key Westminster department to obtain secret polls it has done on the Union.
Formerly run by Michael Gove, it has repeatedly rejected Sheppard’s Freedom of Information request and appeals to make the documents public. After his appeals were turned down, Sheppard took his campaign to the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) Information Rights which in June this year ruled the Cabinet Office must “disclose the information within 28 days”.
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However, since that ruling the documents have yet to be released with the Cabinet Office appearing to use the tribunal appeals system to prevent the material being made public.
Sheppard has submitted a dossier on his long-running battle to the Commons’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) which announced an inquiry in July.
The probe, which is shortly to start taking oral evidence, focuses on how the Cabinet Office body handles requests, the measures used to do so, and whether this complies with the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.
The move followed a court judgement in April demanding the UK Government release files on the department’s Freedom of Information “Clearing House” citing a “profound lack of transparency about the operation”. OpenDemocracy, who brought the case, accused the body of obstructing access to information they are entitled to seek under the FOI rules.
Sheppard (above) last night told The National: “I believe there is a systematic policy of frustrating Freedom of Information procedures by the Cabinet Office. This must be sanctioned by ministers and be a matter of policy.
“It’s behaving like a rogue department within government and it needs to be called to account. I am hopeful this PACAC inquiry it will report on the matter and bring the Cabinet Office to heal.
“I have put Freedom of Information requests into other government departments and got an adequate response within the timescale.”
Asked why he thought the Cabinet Office were consistently blocking requests, he said: “I think they are a law onto themselves and are run by people who are antipathetic to public scrutiny.”
During its court case, OpenDemocracy accused the Cabinet Office Freedom of Information’s Clearing Hous of obstructing access to information they were entitled to seek under the FOI rules. During questioning by the Committee previously, Gove (below) defended the Clearing House stating that it is there to ensure consistency across Government in complying with the Freedom of Information Act.
Under the Act, anyone can request information from a public authority, but it also includes clauses that allow those authorities to…
Read More: SNP slam ‘rogue’ Cabinet Office as probe into UK Government transparency starts