First head to roll from FOI in Whitehall
Oct 25, 2007 FOI in the news
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, announced today that he will be stepping down from his post next year. He had been in the position for 20 years but came under fire for his extravagant use of taxpayer-funded expenses.
While the official word is that he is retiring to avoid any conflict [...]
Government’s FOI charging plans scrapped
Oct 25, 2007 FOI in Parliament
The Government announced today that it will not push through its proposed changes to the FOI charging regulations. The Constitutional Affairs Committee sent out a press release this afternoon:
GOVERNMENT’S CLIMB-DOWN ON FOI FEES IS THE ONLY RIGHT MOVE, SAYS COMMITTEE
The Government today at 1230pm publishes its response to the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee report on [...]
Press freedom in in the UK
Oct 17, 2007 FOI in the news
An interesting study by Reporters Without Borders places the UK 24th in a league table of press freedom. To be honest it seems rather high knowing how many pitfalls stand in the way of getting investigations into the public domain in this country. Libel laws, contempt of court, the Official Secrets Act and the lack [...]
Olympics Register of Gifts & Hospitality
Oct 14, 2007 Central Government
I have now uploaded the entries we were able to transcribe from the Olympic Delivery Authority’s Register of Gifts & Hospitality. I’ve also written a timeline of events as we tried to gain access to these documents – which the ODA fought against all the way.
Read more in the Secret Squirrel section.
Gifts for Olympic bureaucrats
Oct 14, 2007 Articles, FOI in the news, Freedom of Information
An investigation I’ve been doing into the Olympic Delivery Authority resulted in a story in today’s Sunday Times.
Olympic chiefs take contractors’ junkets
Jon Ungoed-Thomas, October 14, 2007
SENIOR executives responsible for building London’s 2012 Olympic venues have accepted junkets and expensive hospitality from companies to whom they have awarded contracts worth millions of pounds.
Officials on the [...]
