The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) watchdog, which regulates FOI, had previously offered to audit the Clearing House. But ministers ignored the committee’s call for the ICO to step in, and instead yesterday appointed a Home Office non-executive director, Sue Langley.
Commenting on the report, Wragg said the Cabinet Office “must act now to remove suspicion around the Clearing House, improve compliance with FOI laws and regain public confidence”.
He added: “As FOI policy owner and coordinating department, the Cabinet Office should be championing transparency across government, but its substandard FOI handling and failure to provide basic information about the working of the coordinating body has had the opposite effect. An internal review alone won’t be sufficient to restore trust.”
His committee has demanded that the audit be completed by October, with an action plan published by the end of the year. It also said the Cabinet Office should publish a “greater volume of data” on the Clearing House’s performance.
Ministers’ attack on openDemocracy
The committee’s report vindicates years of investigations by openDemocracy, which has led the way in exposing the abuse of transparency law.
But the government has consistently attacked our reporting.
Michael Gove described our investigations “ridiculous and tendentious” when he was cabinet secretary. But, under his watch, the department lost a legal battle with openDemocracy and was ordered to release embarrassing new details about its operation.
Last year, the government even took the extraordinary step of publishing a blog post trying to undermine openDemocracy’s journalism, describing our findings as “false” and “untrue”.
In one case, our report accused the government of failing to handle FOI requests in an “applicant-blind” manner, meaning that requests from journalists were facing tougher scrutiny.
The Cabinet Office said this allegation was false, saying: “All FOI requests are treated exactly the same, regardless of who the request is from.”
But today’s select committee report found “multiple examples” where this had not happened – including requests being flagged as “sensitive” because they were from investigative reporters.
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