Article: Top cops’ pay should not be top secret
Aug 10, 2009 Articles, Campaigns, FOI in the news, Freedom of Information, Law Enforcement
Top cops, come clean
The Guardian, 10 August 2009
By Heather Brooke
Secrecy feeds suspicion of a boys’ club stitch-up. Chief constables need to be open on pay and perks
Secrecy can be sexy. It’s essential to any good mystery novel. But there should be no mystery surrounding the pay of top public officials. In October 2008 I made [...]
Statement given to MPs’ expenses review
Jul 1, 2009 Articles, FOI in Parliament
Here is the statement I submitted in evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life on 30th June 2009. Tom Steinberg of My Society was also questioned with me. A transcript of our discussion with the committee members should be published shortly.
What keeps people out of power and out of politics is the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Article: Beef or chicken? Same gravy, different flavour
Apr 23, 2009 Articles, FOI in Parliament
Seeing through expenses transparency
Guardian, Thursday 23 April 2009
By Heather Brooke
Gordon Brown’s reforms may include some much-needed changes to MPs’ expenses, but they don’t go far enough
On Saturday Gordon Brown said he had more important things to deal with than MPs’ expenses.
On Tuesday morning, there was nothing more important than MPs’ expenses and their immediate [...]
The story behind Dispatches: The Westminster Gravy Train
Apr 18, 2009 Articles, FOI in Parliament
From the Channel 4 Website
The Palace of Westminster is meant to be the mother of all Parliaments. It is lauded as a beacon of democracy. Dispatches set out to examine the state of our primary political institution: how democratic is it and how accountable are MPs and Lords to the citizens they are meant to [...]
Article: Where is the UK version of The Wire?
Feb 28, 2009 Articles, Law Enforcement
Us & Them
The Big Issue, February 2009
By Heather Brooke
Not one to believe hype, I was sceptical when I popped in the first series of the much-acclaimed TV series The Wire. For those who haven’t seen it, this is a series that breaks all the rules of TV drama and yet the hype is merited: it [...]
Investigation into Police Chief Bonuses
Feb 13, 2009 Articles, Campaigns, Freedom of Information, Law Enforcement
I worked with the Times Crime Editor Sean O’Neill on an investigation into police chief constables’ bonus schemes. The first part of this investigation was published on 24 January 2009.
Police chiefs net thousands from secret bonus scheme
A secretive bonus scheme set up to reward the country’s top 300 police officers is paying out hundreds [...]
Article: Police Bonuses
Feb 13, 2009 Articles, Law Enforcement
From The Times, 24 January 2009
What have they got to hide?
By Heather Brooke
Investigation is a little like psychiatry where the most telling details are often those kept hidden. When only one police force is willing to tell the public what it pays its Chief Constable in bonuses curiosity is piqued. What do they have to [...]
Article: Watching the Police
Jan 18, 2009 Articles, FOI in Parliament, Law Enforcement
Secret Policemen are having a ball at our expense
The Big Issue, December 2008
By Heather Brooke
Once upon a time people complained of rarely seeing a bobby on the beat. Now they’re lucky to get a full glimpse of a policeman’s face.
Watching the video footage of police searching the office of MP Damian Green I noticed [...]
