Meeting of the Parliament 20 June 2018
It is not my understanding that the commissioner has agreed to publish it annually—that is the point that I am making. I would like to see it published annually, so that we can see how the Government is performing.
The investigation by the Scottish Information Commissioner that we have been talking about came about because of a motion that I lodged last year, which condemned the Government’s performance in handling FOIs and called for the independent inquiry. That motion led to the Government condemning itself—we should never forget that.
The resulting report is a damning indictment that shows the true scale of the issue: a Government is trying to cover its tracks and bury bad news. If the problem is not the paucity of information in case files it is the unwarranted interference from special advisers. I, for one, am deeply uncomfortable with the way in which special advisers are used by this Government, having experienced their reprehensible behaviour during the Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Bill.
In his report, the Scottish Information Commissioner rightly questions why SPADs are checking FOI responses before they are released. The SPADs say that they can advise but they cannot instruct. How many are sticking to that code? To me, it seems that the shadowy fingers of SPADs mark many FOI responses.
One example in the report shows a SPAD saying to the case handler:
“Grateful if you could reconsider the information you propose to release”.
Presiding Officer, if you said words to that effect to me in this chamber, I would take it as an instruction, and so would most people. The SPAD knew exactly what they were doing—they were giving an instruction.