On paper at least, Boston Borough Council’s leadership declares that it wants “to create a climate of openness and dialogue with the public and stakeholders and believes improved access to information about the council will help the development of such an environment.”
In reality, it appears that it is squirming like a worm on an angler’s hook to avoid answering questions from the public.
Whilst the boys and girls in blue haven’t yet gone as far as Boston Business “Improvement” District, in calling the town rangers to strong-arm people seeking information, they’re trying as hard as they can to do the next best thing.
Quite reasonably, the council declares that individuals have a right to privacy and confidentiality that overrides the Freedom of Information Act.
But somewhat darkly, it adds: “The council has a right to discharge its functions effectively. We can therefore use exemptions … to protect public interest.”
Surely, if the public are seeking information, it cannot be in their “interests” to find ways to withhold it.
As always, cost is a factor – and our leaders are more than happy to adopt a set of double standards in the hope that they might eventually wriggle out of being open and transparent.
The council received 128 FoI between October and December 2012 – an increase of 37 on the same period last year.
The council’s resident philosopher, Councillor Derek Richmond, is quoted as saying that it was a big concern.
“It’s costing us a lot of money,” he said, adding obscurely: “Whilst people have a right to this information, it is often just some information. It’s just a search for them. The tax payers are paying for that.”
More rationally, Councillor Mike Gilbert said he thought the council would have to ‘live with FOIs’ and asked if the requests could be put on the council’s website.
But Chief executive Richard Harbord said that some of the requests “not the sort of things we put on the website” adding “Some of the information you wouldn’t want to be general information.”
According to the Ministry of Justice, a local council may either charge for or decline requests for information that would cost more than £450 and should calculate the cost of providing an answer at £25 an hour.
Looking at some recent requests to the council, we doubt that it would take more than a couple of hours to cobble together the answer to a typical question.
So – working on an average of £50 an answer, the October-December total would come to £6,500 – a little over £25,000 a year, which we think is a small price to pay for honesty.
It is, after all, merely a quarter of the sum allocated by the council to provide free parking for its members and staff.
The council already bans the public and the media from meetings if a chance presents itself, and recently we saw the interesting device of an “informal” meeting which from the Tories’ point of view is helpful because no minutes are taken and the hoi polloi are not allowed to attend
At the meeting where the matter was discussed, council leader Pete Bedford said that he and the Chief Executive were thinking of taking the issues to the Local Government Association to find out what information can be “legitimately asked for.”
To us, that sounds suspiciously like finding out how much information they can legitimately avoid – which is bad for everyone concerned.
We are entitled to know as much as possible about our local council – and to seek to avoid giving out information begs the question … what has Boston Borough Council’s leadership got to hide?

 

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