By Tom Gordon, Scottish Political Editor
WESTMINSTER and the UK government are backsliding on their commitment to freedom of information and returning to the secrecy culture of the 1960s and 1970s, Scotland's information watchdog has warned.
In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Kevin Dunion, the Scottish Information Commissioner, pictured below, said there was a growing "separation" in the approach to freedom of information (FoI) north and south of the border, with public bodies in Scotland becoming ever more open, while many English organisations have been pulling down the shutters.
He singled out Jack Straw's use of a veto on the release of Cabinet minutes dealing with the Iraq war as a backward step, and said many MPs simply "don't get" the concept of letting the public see the detail of how they spend taxpayers' money, despite it being the norm at Holyrood. Dunion, who has held his post since 2004, also said he feared that a Conservative government would be no different from Labour. "I discern a palpably different mood north and south of the border. I just wonder, where are the friends of FoI down south?"
His comments come as the SNP government considers whether to extend the reach of FoI to a new range of organisations in Scotland. Dunion has asked for the biggest Public Private Partnership (PPP) contracts, including privately run Kilmarnock Prison, and around 80 arms-length council trusts, many handling leisure services, to be designated as open to FoI.
Starting with housing associations owning more than 1000 homes, he has also asked for all 170 registered social landlords to be designated. The change would not expose private companies to every kind of FoI request, but it would open up specific contracts under which they carried out a public function, such as building a hospital or maintaining a school.
Dunion, who demits office in 2012, told the Sunday Herald that his work was entering a mature "second phase", with fewer contentious cases to rule on than in the early years of FoI, which came into effect in January 2005.
His annual report, published tomorrow, will show a 24% drop in appeals to his office in 2008 from people unhappy with the responses they had to FoI requests. The number of appeals closed by "settlement", where two sides compromised without the need for a ruling from Dunion, has doubled in the past two years to 30% - another positive step, he said.
However, he said he was far from complacent, and was determined to ensure the bad practices creeping back in England did not come north. "We are very keen to press ahead with the extension of FoI in Scotland, and we are in discussion with Bruce Crawford minister for parliamentary business.
"Down south, the indications are that's far from the government's agenda. It's more concerned with amending FoI, to make sure it doesn't apply to things like Northern Rock and to use the veto to stop the release of Cabinet minutes.
"Those are all really negative indicators from down south, which at the moment we don't seem to have any parallel for in Scotland."
Last month, Jack Straw, the UK secretary of state, issued the first ministerial veto under English FoI law in order to block the of release the Iraq war Cabinet minutes. The English information commissioner had ruled they were of such public interest they should be released, as did the Information Tribunal, to which the government initially appealed.
But Straw said cabinet ministers had a right to private discussions. "The use by Jack Straw of the veto should not be at all downplayed," said Dunion. "It is a nuclear option for a minister to press the button on using the veto and overriding not just the information commissioner, but the Information Tribunal.
"We are now getting clear signals that English legislation may be amended so that Cabinet minutes become absolutely exempt. That is quite a departure from progressive thinking in FoI. That's going back to 1960s, 1970s thinking."
