Transparently Mendacious Brown

Heather Brooke, who deserves ennobling for her investigatory work into the stinking bowels of our government, describes the vacuousness of Brown's talk about 'transparency': Freedom of information? It's a state secret.

When it comes to politicians advocating open government the best advice is to ignore what they say and focus on what they do.

Yesterday, Gordon Brown used the dreaded word “transparency”. I have been campaigning for five years on freedom of information and had to go to the High Court to force the disclosure of MPs' expenses, so it is with some satisfaction that I now hear the Prime Minister issuing statements about the need for open government that I couldn't have written better myself.

Mr Brown proposed extending the scope of freedom of information. The funny thing is that he suggested this once before, in October 2007. It must have slipped his mind.

Back then, in the first flush of office, he gave a rousing speech on civil liberties. He announced a public consultation about extending coverage of the Freedom of Information Act to institutions that received huge whacks of taxpayers' cash but had no obligation to be publicly accountable, such as city academies, Network Rail, and private companies providing public services.

The consultation closed in February 2008 and the results were supposed to be implemented no later than November 2008. Need I say that nothing happened? In January I inquired about this phantom consultation. I asked the Ministry of Justice for a copy of the submissions and timelines of progress on implementation. Not getting a straight answer, I filed an FoI request (as I do).

You can guess what happened next. My FoI request about the progress of freedom of information was rejected. The ministry claimed that all the information was exempt as it involved the “formulation of government policy”. So much for Mr Brown's airy claim that “this is the public's money. They should know how it is spent.”

Now Mr Brown has put in charge of the FoI reforms one Jack Straw, of the Ministry of Justice, (a department with one of the shoddiest records in answering FoI requests). He is to head a public debate on this secret public consultation. When it comes to making bureaucracies accountable this is the snail's pace of progress.

How unlike the lightning speed with which new bureaucracies are created. Two were magicked into life just this week: A shiny new department for Peter Mandelson and the ironically-titled Government Democratic Council. I say ironic because in the true spirit of Yes, Minister its creation is shrouded in secrecy. It appears the members will be ministers appointed by the Prime Minister in secret and it's unclear how transparently they will formulate reforms for a more transparent democracy. Here's betting it will be behind closed doors.