openDemocracy went to court after the Cabinet Office appealed against the ICO’s ruling that it should disclose the advice the Clearing House gives to other government departments
openDemocracy also asked for how much the government had spent on fighting the ICO’s ruling, only to be told that final invoicing costs have not yet been confirmed.
Details of the scale of government spending to prevent FOI disclosure come as a new poll for openDemocracy found that seven in ten UK adults were concerned by the sharp fall in FOI responses across government departments.
Views on government transparency are shared across the political spectrum, with 83% of Conservative voters and 76% of Labour voters agreeing that it is important for democracy, according the poll, which was carried out by SavantaComRes.
‘Opposition for the sake of it’
Author Andrew Lownie has spent four years and £250,000 fighting for the release of Lord Mountbatten’s diaries, after his attempts were blocked by Southampton University, which owns the archive, and the Cabinet Office. Lownie said the government seemed to have a policy of opposing transparency.
“If the government directed the money they spend on frustrating FOI requests on actually assessing and releasing material then there might be greater confidence in FOI,” he told openDemocracy.
“The policy seems to be opposition for the sake of it, even on files which pose no threat to security or data protection.
“The Cabinet Office and Southampton University have consistently refused to say how much they have spent on my fight to see the Mountbatten diaries and letters, beyond Southampton admitting to £33,000 just on a QC for the case management hearings.
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