My critic in the news again
Jun 25, 2009 Campaigns, FOI in Parliament, Freedom of Information
Readers of the blog may recall Alan Keen MP questioning my motives at a parliamentary inquiry held several weeks ago.
With his wife, Ann, the couple are known as ‘Mr and Mrs Expenses’ for using £175,000 of taxpayers’ money to help buy a flat near Parliament – while they already had a constituency home nine [...]
Article: It’s our data
Jun 22, 2009 Articles, FOI in Parliament, Freedom of Information
It’s our data, make it accessible
Guardian, Friday 19 June 2009
By Heather Brooke
It was rather like trying to do a Google search and getting your answers delivered as a truckload of blacked-out telephone directories. The information age may have arrived some decades ago but from the format of yesterday’s publication of MPs’ expenses, Parliament is so [...]
Blackwash
Jun 19, 2009 FOI in Parliament
It’s all there in black and white but it’s the black you notice.
The black costs money. It’s the single most expensive part of the operation to publish MPs’ expenses. It took over a year to produce yesterday’s disclosures but the delay and the cost were needless.
The expenses could have simply been put out for [...]
Parliament publishes expenses today…
Jun 18, 2009 Freedom of Information
They are on the House of Commons website.
The mechanics of this publication have been characterised by the usual chaos, confusion and obfuscation we’ve come to expect from the House of Commons and the Members Estimates Committee. No official statement was given as to the final date, time and format. Just rumour and speculation. There was [...]
Bigger moats to clean
Jun 11, 2009 Campaigns, FOI in the news, Freedom of Information
In the hoo-ha about the Government’s new plans to be more transparent we should not be surprised that these reforms also include attempts to be more secretive. In the same way the Zimbabwe Government shut down newspapers under that country’s Freedom of Information law, so this Government plans to make Cabinet minutes automatically exempt from [...]
Article: A Prime Minister’s conversion to openness
Jun 11, 2009 Articles, FOI in Parliament, FOI in the news, Freedom of Information
Freedom of information? It’s a state secret
The Times, June 11, 2009
By Heather Brooke
Promises of more open government have been made before
When it comes to politicians advocating open government the best advice is to ignore what they say and focus on what they do.
Yesterday, Gordon Brown used the dreaded word “transparency”. I have been campaigning for [...]
Fragile flower shows its power
Jun 11, 2009 Freedom of Information
The outgoing Information Commissioner Richard Thomas released a statement via his private PR company (paid for at public expense) this morning in which he urges Whitehall and the public sector to learn the lessons from the MPs’ expenses scandal and routinely publish more official information without waiting to be asked.
“The Freedom of Information Act has [...]
Transparency of politicians’ expenses goes global
Jun 8, 2009 FOI in Parliament
Wow – the MPs’ expenses story has taken off in a way I never predicted. That’s part of the reason I’ve not been posting regularly (not that I’ve ever been a prolific blogger). But in the past month, I’ve been inundated with interview requests from all over the world. Apart from the British media, I’ve [...]
Speaking at the Frontline Club Monday June 8th
Jun 4, 2009 Campaigns
I’ll be speaking about the MPs’ expenses story on Monday at the Frontline Club in London Monday June 8th at 7.30pm. Joining me will be Roger Alton, editor of The Independent, Andrew Pierce, assistant editor of the Daily Telegraph and media commentator Roy Greenslade who will be chairing the event.
I imagine we’ll be talking [...]
