Freedom of Information
The next item of business is a debate on freedom of information.
I warmly welcome this afternoon's debate. It is customary for Scottish Executive ministers to begin their speeches by stating that the debate is relevant and timely, but when we planned this afternoon's debate as part of the review of freedom of information that the Executive is about to undertake, I could not have imagined that the timing would be so apposite. I do not intend to comment on any individuals or personal issues this afternoon, but I will refer to case studies to illustrate issues that are significant to the Executive.
Our introduction of freedom of information is part of the process that began essentially in 1997 of making the United Kingdom a state that is fit for the 21st century. That process has included ending hereditary peerages, cleaning up party funding and devolution itself. All those big constitutional changes happened because of political will. I argue that freedom of information is part of the machinery of modernising government.
The Executive enthusiastically introduced the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill because it is committed to ensuring that citizens have the means to call to account the people who make decisions that affect them. A principle of good governance is that it should be as open and transparent as possible; freedom of information encourages the machinery of government into more open, outward-looking and inclusive behaviours.
The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 covers 10,000 or so public bodies, so it is far-reaching legislation that touches on the crucial interaction between the public and the organisations or individuals who often impact on our daily lives, including schools, hospitals, general practitioners and local authority services.
In introducing the bill and implementing the act, the Executive was determined that the ordinary citizen should have in their hands the means to access information easily and manageably. We examined jurisdictions elsewhere, learned from them and produced a package of measures that has had an impact. For example, last week, a radio presenter said:
"There's ample evidence in its short life that the act has now been widely used and is exerting a growing influence on Scottish public life."
That conclusion is to be strongly welcomed.
In enabling individual citizens to secure information in which they are interested and in securing proper scrutiny of its decisions, has the Government reflected on concern that members of the public have drawn to my attention about whether, if the information commissioner refuses to support an appeal, any other mechanism should be available for the public to pursue concerns?
The information commission is obviously an independent body. From the Executive's perspective, we need to be careful about trying to impinge on that independence. I will comment later on how the Executive is responding to FOI as it develops, and to its impact on Scottish life. Were such problems to emerge, I would not rule out the Executive's taking appropriate and reasonable steps. In the range of issues that has been brought to our attention, that has not been the most immediate, but perhaps we can discuss it further as I develop my points.
A glance at news stories and the disclosure logs of public authorities highlights success stories in respect of freedom of information. For example, members of the public in Glasgow can make a better-informed choice about dining out now that inspection reports on hygiene and food safety in Glasgow restaurants—which of course I encourage people to attend regularly—are disclosed. Glasgow is a great city with many fabulous restaurants and disclosure has led to routine publication of reports by Glasgow City Council and has prompted other local authorities to do the same.
Some individuals have obtained information from local authorities about plans for relocations or possible closures of schools, which has given them an early opportunity to feed into developments on an informed basis. Older and previously inaccessible information is also moving into the public domain. Scottish Executive officials are working hard to review the files that have been sent to the National Archives of Scotland to be permanently preserved. By the end of September, more than 5,500 files that would, before FOI, have been routinely closed for 30 years were fully open and available for inspection at the National Archives.
Of course, in implementing FOI, balance and proportionality must be maintained. FOI is intended to ensure that jobs are better done and not to divert people from the task in hand. It is patently absurd if pulling together information to answer a given request prevents other critical work from being done. My experience is that the Executive has done quite well. For example, 80 per cent of all requests to the Executive are met within the 20-day deadline. Appropriate reasons have been given and accepted as legitimate when requests have not been met within the deadline.
Some exclusions from FOI have taken place. Those are necessary exclusions to permit organisations' proper functioning. The Executive's strong contention is that space is needed in which to explore options, rehearse and consider them and then to decide. There is a need for space for all of us to have private discussions in the proper context, which is an accepted feature of well-established FOI regimes around the world. We must be properly held to account for the decisions that we make. The first phase of implementation has certainly been lively and eventful and there have been significant milestones, but I think that all of us would accept that FOI has not yet completely fulfilled its potential.
As I have said, our aim is to empower the ordinary citizen. We cannot argue that we have reached where we want to be when lawyers are among the main sources of appeals to the Scottish information commissioner and when more than half—60 per cent—of the requests that the Scottish Executive has received have come from the media. In addition to exercising the new rights appropriately, if we are to make FOI work and be as effective as possible and not be superficial, we must be honest about the challenges that it currently presents.
Some requests might be seen as frivolous. There have been requests demonstrating an interest in the wine stocks in Bute House. It is perhaps not for me to comment on such requests, although some people might wish there to be such requests. My colleagues in England have told me that there have been requests on the condition and whereabouts of Buster, the Crufts hero of the year, from no less an organisation than the Ministry of Defence. Documents relating to the Prime Minister's appearance on "The Simpsons" have been subject to an FOI request, and it is now known that Alastair Campbell's advice was that it would be barmy to appear on that programme. Alastair Campbell is always worth listening to and the revelation may be interesting.
I thank the minister for making interesting comments. How much of the information that has been released could have been released by the departments in question without the passing of the Freedom on Information (Scotland) Act 2002?
I cannot give an answer; that would be hard to determine in some ways. Some organisations do not proactively release information and evidence suggests that FOI is a lever that can release it. It is true throughout the world that disclosure of information has changed as a result of the introduction of FOI regimes. Once there is FOI, the giving of information and organisational behaviour change and people go for much more proactive disclosure. An absolute answer cannot be given to the member's question, but one cannot argue against the strong conclusion that FOI changes organisational behaviour and that, without it, certain information would not have been put in the public domain.
Of course we understand that journalists will make use of FOI, as will commercial interests—we have seen that happen—but we must be clear that the real prize is in giving ordinary citizens access to information that is important to them and to their families, and which leads to their uncovering a practice or decision that had previously been shrouded from public view.
The Executive made important commitments in the first year of the operation of the legislation, so I pay tribute to the work of Jim Wallace, who worked hard to introduce it. We have worked closely with a group of stakeholders with the remit to review operation of the legislation and to consider a range of issues. For example, we have made a commitment to consider extension of the list of bodies that are subject to the act. Before we reach a conclusion on that matter, we must ensure that what we want to do is proportionate and reasonable. It must be remembered that there are already about 10,000 bodies that fall within the scope of the act.
As I tried to say to John Swinney, I have no doubt that the impact of FOI will develop in Scotland as the act beds down, and we must ensure that that happens at the appropriate pace.
I am interested in what the minister said about extending the scope of the act. I think that it was the Minister for Justice who answered an inquiry of mine on whether FOI would be extended to housing associations. I was told that the Executive would have a position on that matter by the end of the year. Can the minister tell me what the timescale is for that decision, particularly in the light of current circumstances?
Christine Grahame is perceptive—I was about to address that point. We must consider the issue.
We have something in common.
Indeed—at last, we have something in common.
The review is being introduced essentially because it will allow us to determine objective criteria that will be the basis of any decisions on changes to what the act covers. I strongly welcome the views of members on the subject of the discussion that we are having. We want to garner opinions on criteria. With regard to housing associations, we must consider whether it is proportionate to have a regime that is appropriate for the larger organisations but which might be disproportionately burdensome on some of the smaller ones. I want to be sure on that. There has been no decision made; I want to hear some of the arguments around the matter.
Further ministerial statements have contained a commitment to an early review of the level and operation of fees that are charged under the act. At present, the first £100-worth of information is free and the next £500-worth can be charged only at 10 per cent of the costs, giving a maximum charge of £50. I argue that the current fees regime is both generous and simple for individual users. In undertaking the consultation, I do not want to lose sight of those benefits. The Executive is of the clear view that costs should not stand in the way of proper implementation of the act, nor should they prohibit any legitimate use of the act.
On the other hand, we cannot stand by and allow irresponsible use of the regime—for example, when there is a disproportionate or excessive cost to the taxpayer. It appears that the current mechanism may allow some abuse of the spirit of the act. That might include, for example, individuals—some evidence suggests quite a lot of whom may be from commercial organisations—putting in multiple requests on the same topic without the public authority being able to aggregate those for cost purposes or to reflect the real costs of pulling together information from disparate sources.
Overall, I want the review to take a good look at the experiences of FOI, although I believe that it is much too early to judge any requirement for wholesale changes to the regime. We will therefore seek views later this year from public authorities, users, campaigning groups, MSPs and a wide range of other stakeholders to feed into fine tuning of the act, which will enable continued successful implementation of the legislation.
In conclusion, I argue that the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) 2002 is serving Scotland well. We have improved systems of communication with the Scottish people across huge swathes of public life. We are all now more open to our constituents, decision making throughout Scotland is more transparent and access to information has been opened up throughout Scotland. The legislation has more to do, but there has been significant progress in the past 10 months.
It is ironic that the debate occurs following recent events that have somewhat overshadowed what we are debating today. Like the minister, I wish to concentrate on the main issue of freedom of information and the benefits that go with it, even if it has costs to the individual. However, it would be remiss of me if I did not make brief comments on more recent matters.
On the publication of expenses, it is quite clear that we must publish—there is no alternative. It is essential that there is probity as well as scrutiny in public life. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind the fact that although the Scottish Parliament is barely six years old, two key figures have been devoured. I know both of them and believe that they are decent individuals who have contributed significantly to Parliament.
We must ensure not just that individuals avoid being devoured, but that this institution is not destroyed. I know that many people believe that, whatever their political party, all MSPs are beyond redemption—that we are all tainted. That may be the case, and elections will prove that. However, if there is to be any redemption for Parliament and if there is to be a new influx of people who are not tainted, Parliament must be worth coming into. It must be an institution that will not simply seek to destroy. Such people must be able to have their own lives and have the opportunity to make mistakes and survive the consequences.
I turn to the principles of FOI. We are in danger of losing sight of the aims, intentions and valuable outcomes that the minister touched on. Freedom of information is a good thing—we need to restate that. Whatever the by-products of freedom of information may be for individuals, it is fundamentally beneficial for society and for our communities. The principle of openness is important. It is sound and, I would argue, it is essential in the increasingly complex society in which we live. Nevertheless, there has to be a review, and we welcome the steps that the minister is taking, because the regime is not delivering as perhaps it could or should—there is some way to go. As I have mentioned in previous debates, we must see the glass as being half full rather than half empty. Progress still has to be made. We must go beyond simply devouring individuals in a firestorm and look at what we are trying to do in achieving accountability and allowing access to individuals.
Some decisions in our society are made by accountable politicians and elected officials, but a great deal in our lives is dealt with by quangos, non-departmental public bodies, public-private partnerships and commercial organisations. Such matters impact as much upon the daily lives of individuals as do decisions that are made by the Executive and other public bodies, in which a minister can be held to account. However, unless individuals are tenacious and make efforts such as those made by the likes of Robbie the Pict, there are significant difficulties.
The fact that we need more openness was mentioned earlier by the minister and has been mentioned, to his credit, by Jim Wallace. It was suggested—and probably remains the intention—that we have to open up. However, where we need to go further is not so much in Parliament, because everything is now being put online and in the public domain in other ways. Instead, we should consider aspects of life that are not dealt with by elected politicians but that have significant impacts, and on which no accountable officer, such as a councillor or a minister of state, is answerable.
Where do we go now? We must not roll back but go forward. The minister is correct to say that it is a matter of balance, and the Presiding Officer has touched upon the balance between individual rights to access and the cost to commercial organisations and government bodies, whose purpose should not be drowned in a sea of paperwork or under a plethora of requests. We must get that balance right. It is always a judgment call, and sometimes we will get it wrong, but we should bear in mind two fundamental guiding principles: accessibility and affordability.
On accessibility, we in Parliament—and to some extent the Executive—have done well. The same applies on accountability. However, we need to open up private bodies because they are just as important as public bodies. People want to know what is going on with Reliance, what the contracts are with HM Prison Kilmarnock and what PPP schemes have been entered into. Some matters will be commercially confidential, but others will not be, and the way in which the latter impinge upon daily life is as important as any matters for which Parliament can be called to account.
On affordability, it is a matter of balance. However, we must recognise that if we set a threshold of cost at a level that is beyond the ordinary man or woman in the street, the principle of openness is taken away. We need to balance accessibility with affordability, and we must not price individuals out of the market.
There has been some debate about multiple requests. My understanding of the minister's position is that multiple requests can be addressed at present. It is simply a matter of seeking to aggregate requests from individuals. There is a mechanism in the legislation that would allow an organisation that is bound by FOI—or that may in future be bound by FOI—to say that the cost implications are significantly more than can be justified, and to seek to impose a higher charge. We must bear it in mind that fishing expeditions will be carried out by individuals, sometimes with malevolent intent; however, that must be balanced against the right of individuals to know what is happening in their society.
The Scottish National Party welcomes today's debate, even though it is overshadowed by matters that are beyond our control—and which cannot be dealt with in the timetable—that have not just saddened Parliament but stigmatised us all. We welcome the concept of FOI: it is fundamental to the society that we wish to create and it is part of the founding principles of the Parliament. However, we must keep FOI accessible and make it affordable. We must open it up beyond Parliament to include other bodies that matter fundamentally in daily life. We must remember that although there are people who are simply at it—for want of a better phrase—or who are looking for mischief, we should allow people who are on to something that clearly impacts upon their lives or the lives of others the opportunity to obtain information without their being bankrupted as a consequence.
I make it clear from the start that the Conservative group has no inhibition whatever in debating this subject. It is entirely proper that the Executive should seek to revisit the matter and to review the effectiveness or otherwise of the legislation.
However, it is also fair to say that the Conservatives opposed the bill in its parliamentary passage for a number of reasons. First, I acknowledge the consensus that, as far as wider society is concerned, government at every level and public bodies should be as open as possible to public scrutiny. That was never the point at issue. I seem to recollect saying at the time that the legislation was in some respects unnecessary and, indeed, that it could have precisely the reverse effect of what the Government intended and could reduce transparency. Although the Executive has attempted to demonstrate its no doubt sincere commitment to FOI by sponsoring the legislation, measures such as the abolition of school league tables and the scrapping of national health service trusts have had a negative effect on public awareness and accountability.
We were—and remain—firmly of the view that ministerial direction was the best way of dealing with such matters and of building on the record of the previous Conservative Government at Westminster, which even the most jaundiced observer would agree had taken a number of steps to improve matters. For example, the "Code of Practice on Access to Government Information", which was published in 1994, largely met the public need. Ironically, members on the Labour benches at Westminster were extremely critical of it but, by the time the Conservative Government left office, an additional 77,500 records had been made available to the public. The Government also introduced performance tables for schools and hospitals and published emergency services response times. Few would argue that that was anything other than the right course of action to take.
Before 2002, when the legislation that we are debating came into effect, there was absolutely nothing to inhibit the Executive from publishing any information that it had on matters relating to its competence. It needed only the political will to do so; that was what should have happened.
Does the member accept that there is a difference in principle between an Executive of whatever character taking the decision about what to publish and members of the public—whose information it is—deciding for themselves what they want to know about?
I will answer the member's question if I can advance my argument a little.
Under the terms of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, the Government can still conceal information. For example, as Mr Stevenson is no doubt aware, section 52 permits the First Minister, after consulting the Executive, effectively to override a decision notice from the Scottish information commissioner, and section 4 allows ministers to add or remove bodies that the act covers. I am not suggesting that such powers will be used often, but they enable Scottish ministers to exempt themselves from the legislation's provisions. At least the code of practice had the advantage of combining openness and flexibility, which the range of permissible exemptions under the 2002 act detracts from.
Freedom of information cannot simply be a matter for legislation; we have to create a climate of transparency. However, such transparency will not be improved by centralising services.
Will the member give way?
No—I must move on.
Like Governments, we in Parliament can resolve the matter by acting administratively. Even now, I want to face the issue of members' expenses full on. At this point, I must record my appreciation of the moderate tone that the minister and Mr MacAskill introduced in the debate.
Although many administrative wrangles will have to be sorted out, the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body has made the correct decision: making members' expenses available on the internet will save a tremendous amount of administrative time and fulfil Parliament's aims of openness and accountability.
Frankly, I find it depressing that 70 out of the 147 FOI requests that have been made since 11 January have related in some way to members' benefits. Throughout the recent saga, the Conservative group has not had any difficulty with making public members' expenses. However, we have demanded consistency. The fact that that will now be introduced will not concern members at all, as long as personal confidentiality and security issues are addressed.
We must also have complete consistency. On 26 June, Scotland on Sunday reported a source close to the First Minister as saying:
"The level of detail on expenses and allowances that the Parliament publishes is a matter for the parliamentary authorities, and the First Minister recognises the concerns that they have … about publishing information that is of a personal nature and relates to …employees".
That is perfectly correct. However, the spokesman also said that
"to avoid any suggestion whatsoever of any impropriety, the First Minister would be happy in principle to show the details of these claims to any interested journalist."
I am not going to take issue with that, but I presume that the First Minister will be happy to do the same in relation to all his travel and that of ministerial colleagues. I am not for one moment alleging any impropriety but, in the interests of consistency, ministers and deputy ministers should now volunteer to release all details of transport that is arranged by the Government car service, at least down to the level of street names, as was required of David McLetchie. It is ironic that, if ministers refuse do so, they could be forced to comply by a ruling from the Scottish Information Commissioner, which would present the First Minister with a challenge: would he be prepared to overrule his own information commissioner, as he is entitled to do, as I have demonstrated, under the terms of the legislation. I certainly hope that that would not occur.
Ministers may also be required to spend money over and above that which is incurred in respect of ministerial cars—on travel and hospitality, for example—and it is quite right that that should be revealed on the same basis as was required of David McLetchie. Legislation and procedures on sensitive matters should not be selective in their application; only when they are not will freedom of information and the principles behind it be enhanced rather than prejudiced. As I have stated, it is a sensitive issue and it must be dealt with thoughtfully and progressively. I am sure that there is no great divide between us. What has happened recently is unfortunate, and I certainly agree with Mr MacAskill that it is absolutely necessary that we move forward in all respects.
I return to my principal point. The 2002 act has worked to some extent in many ways, but we are still inhibited by the application of sections 4 and 52, which could have exactly the reverse effect from what I am convinced was the Executive's genuine attempt to open matters up. Until such time as those two sections of the act are addressed, the Conservative group and the public in general will look somewhat askance at the effectiveness of the legislation.
I welcome the debate and share Margaret Curran's view that it is relevant and timely. If we have future debates, as I hope we will, I suggest that they should be linked to the commissioner's report, so that the Parliament can have an opportunity to reflect on matters that the commissioner has raised.
I thank Margaret Curran for her kind comments and for her recognition that I have a strong personal commitment to freedom of information. I was pleased to be able to guide the legislation through the Parliament in 2001-02 and I congratulate all those who have been involved in getting to where we are today.
Section 75 says that the act will commence no later than 31 December 2005, so in fact it was brought in a year ahead of the expected commencement date. I am aware of what was needed in terms of training and of what was involved in ensuring that every public authority came on stream at the same time, not bit by bit as happened in some other jurisdictions. To get to a situation in which, overwhelmingly, most requests are met within the 20-day deadline is a tribute to those who have had to change practices and address a new situation.
I have a cartoon at home by the Shetland cartoonist, Smirk. The caption is:
"Naebody said life wid be easy".
One could also say that nobody said freedom of information would be comfortable. I remember that one of the early requests asked how many times individual ministers had used a ministerial car to go from St Andrew's House to here, and I featured somewhat prominently in the list. One newspaper published a picture of me quite clearly eating a snack breakfast with a pile of papers on my lap in the back seat of a car. Actually, far from that being a difficulty, many people commented on how busy I must be if I had to have my breakfast and work on papers in a car at the same time. On further investigation, it emerged that the car was not a ministerial car at all, but that the photograph had been taken during a previous election campaign and that the car had been paid for by the Scottish Liberal Democrats, but that is by the by.
As Margaret Curran indicated, we are getting information that otherwise would not have been generally available, such as material on the Skye bridge contract and correspondence between the Scottish Executive and the Home Office on fresh talent. Margaret Curran also mentioned information on food safety and hygiene in Glasgow restaurants.
It is fair to say that the Lord Advocate's bold decision to release papers relating to the Dunblane inquiry, which might otherwise have had a 100-year embargo on them, was taken in the spirit of freedom of information. Phil Gallie asked, "Could it have been done otherwise?" I do not think that that is quite the right question, although Bill Aitken also referred to it. Of course it could have been done, but the real question is whether it would have been done, and I doubt very much whether it would have been done. I do not think that anyone would—
The member has answered the question by acknowledging that the Lord Advocate released the papers in the spirit of the act. He was not forced to do so; he did so in the spirit of the act.
That is the point. Freedom of information is not only about legislation; it is about a change of culture and a change of approach.
The code of access was all very well—it was better than what we had previously—but the information and the requests that have come since the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 was introduced show that clear difference.
As Stewart Stevenson indicated in his intervention, it is not a question of what a paternalistic Government of any hue decides that it wants to put into the public domain. Section 1 of the act states:
"A person who requests information from a Scottish public authority which holds it is entitled to be given it by the authority."
Of course, there are exemptions because every freedom of information regime has balances, but the principle is there that the individual—the citizen—is entitled to get the information. That switches the balance and that is very healthy.
Will the member give way?
No. I want to make progress.
I will not dwell on the issue of expenses. The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and the Parliament decided, properly, that freedom of information should apply to the Parliament as well as to the Executive. Perhaps it is a forlorn hope, but it would be nice to think that if we put our expenses on the internet on a quarterly basis, as is proposed—I support the proposal—those who report on the figures will, in the spirit of freedom of information, report the expenses fairly.
When Westminster published expenses figures last week, global sums were published for each individual MP. I like to think that when sums are published for us, someone might realise that, for example, when a sum of £1,000 is listed it is a sum of £1,000 that went to Orkney Islands Council to pay the rates on my constituency office. It should be recognised that some funds go to our staff and I hope that our staff will not be named. There should be proper anonymity for them and the amount that they are paid should not be revealed, but global totals of what is spent on salaries should be made clear.
My figure for travel expenses will definitely be one of the highest, and if that means that people campaign with me to ensure that the Minister for Transport and Telecommunications introduces a public service obligation for air transport to the isles, that will be a very good thing. Provided that the whole, balanced picture is shown, the process might lead to a much more informed debate.
The addition of bodies has been discussed in the debate. I indicated at stage 3 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill that when a new body was established by parliamentary statute, it would be possible to add to schedule 1 of the act in a particular bill. As I was preparing for today's debate, I suddenly had a cold sweat and wondered whether I had done that in respect of the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council, but I was relieved to find that paragraph 12 of schedule 3 of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 does that.
I am aware that the children's commissioner, for example, is not covered by the freedom of information regime. I suggest to members who are on the Procedures Committee that perhaps there should be an addition to the standing orders, which state what has to be covered in the memorandum that accompanies a bill, to the effect that the memorandum must contain a line to say what the relevant implications are for freedom of information, if only so that someone is prompted to remember that if there is a particular body in the bill to which freedom of information should apply, that will be done in the bill.
I was glad to hear the minister say that some consultation would take place with regard to extending the list. Will she give us more detail on that when she sums up? I understood the minister to say that she would ask various interest groups what additions there might be. My understanding of section 5 is that if a particular company—such as Reliance, the operator of Kilmarnock prison or NorthLink—were to be added, it would have to be consulted. Is a two-stage process anticipated or could we look at the more obvious ones at the same time?
I am probably in my last minute.
No, it is all right.
I thought that it might be useful to remind the member that Tom McCabe made a commitment to me that henceforth, by and large, contracts of that nature would be in the public domain and published.
It is not only about the contracts. The Skye bridge example demonstrates that it is not only the contracts but some of the operational details that are relevant. The process should be subject to proper commercial confidentiality, but I know from representations that were made to me at the time that when a company is operating and taking public functions, it is not just about the contract.
I remember resisting an amendment on registered social landlords because it covered a wide spread of housing associations, some of which might be very small. To say to a small group of volunteers that they have got to have the whole panoply of publication schemes might be going too far. However, Glasgow Housing Association does not fall into the category of a small organisation and therefore, in the current circumstances, it might be a good candidate to go on an extended list.
As I said, the real need was to challenge a culture that was deeply ingrained in the British system of government and which goes back to the Official Secrets Act 1911. That culture said that everything was secret unless it was to be derestricted for some reason. We are trying to change the presumption round so that official information is open unless there is a good and compelling reason for it to be restricted.
I believe that the 2002 act is, in itself, a key way of changing the culture of secrecy, but legislation cannot do it alone. The process of change must be reflected in practices and in how public authorities approach the issue. That is why I believe that publication schemes are very important. When I visited the New Zealand minister who had responsibility for freedom of information, he said that the more a minister put into the publication scheme, the fewer requests were directed towards their department, because more information was more generally available anyway.
I know and believe that we are trying to introduce that culture here and that we want to encourage and foster it. At the end of the day, I believe that information is the currency of a democracy and it is important that the citizens who vote and who are participants in the democracy have ready access to the currency.
It is absolutely right that the minister says that there is a necessity that some private discussion take place. I think that that is sensible. There must be an obtaining of advice, which is part of the process of taking any decision, whether in Government or elsewhere. However, after such discussions have taken place and the civil service has formulated its detailed submissions on any major decision, I think that there is no reason why such advice cannot be made public. The same applies to speaking notes that the civil service prepares for ministers.
We saw some of those documents in the course of the Holyrood inquiry, which I attended in the year when my taxi bills were higher than £3.46, which I think they have been in the past six months. What we learned from the inquiry was that it is difficult to see why the late first First Minister took some decisions. For example, it is difficult to see why no explanation was given for why the first First Minister declined to accept the advice in April 1999—it was shortly before the election, I believe—to have a press conference to explain that the likely building cost of Holyrood had gone from £40 million to £50 million. One may surmise that the midst of an election campaign was not a particularly congenial moment at which to reveal that the cost of building this place, as estimated then, had risen by such a large amount.
The benefit in making public the final advice that the civil service gives, rather than the initial advice and discussions and the searching for facts and checking of information, is not only that the public would then know what had been decided, but that they, and indeed we, would be able to assess why a decision had been taken. Knowing the information that lies behind a decision would, of course, have the desirable consequence of allowing us to have a higher level of debate. If we know what the options were in the taking of any ministerial decision and see the advice and information that was given and why a minister took decision A over decision B, surely that would lead to better government. In such a circumstance, a minister would no longer be able to conceal the advice that he had received; he would have to explain and justify the basis upon which any decision had been taken.
I want to discuss two areas in which legislation must be liberalised and in which the public must have the right to greater access to information about the money that they provide to Government to spend.
A lot of public money is paid to voluntary bodies and private companies. Where public money is paid out, the public have a right to see how it is spent. As has been said, that applies to companies such as Reliance, but it also applies to charities such as RSPB Scotland, whose turnover exceeds £80 million. The RSPB spends around £30 million on staff. How does it do that? I would like to see information on the public money that the RSPB receives. I hope that such bodies—bodies that profess to have a civic responsibility—would volunteer to tell the public how much public money they manage to consume. Members of the Scottish Crofters Union whom I met on Saturday in Lochaber were slightly envious to learn that the RSPB makes £1 million a year from its farming income. That is more than any of the crofters who were present at the Torlundy mart on Saturday.
However, the second and main area that I wish to address relates to commercial confidentiality. The excuse of commercial confidentiality is often used as a smokescreen and convenient expedient when there is no well-founded justification for the withholding of information on the basis of confidentiality.
The fundamental proposition that I wish to advance to the minister is this: there is a need for confidentiality while a contract for public sector services or a public sector building is in the course of tender, but once the contract has been awarded to one company, the public are entitled to see what services that company is to provide and at what cost. For example, a year ago I was pleased to attend the reception following the award of the ScotRail franchise to First ScotRail. When I asked Moir Lockhead and Mary Dickson whether the contract would be published, they said that it would be, as soon as they could get it through the lawyers. The contract was published about three weeks ago. What kept it a year?
People write about train services in Scotland being deficient, but the answer to them is that First ScotRail is obliged to do only what is in the contract. The company cannot be blamed for not providing services and routes that it is not paid for. It is very convenient for the Executive to withhold for a year the publication of the contract, because doing so impairs debate. People expect all sorts of things from First ScotRail. They expect better rolling stock, more services, more routes, higher frequencies, greater cleanliness, more reliability and more punctuality. If the public cannot even see the contract and see what they have paid for—the minister admits that they have a right to know—how can they come to an informed decision?
Another example of the Executive not fulfilling its proportions of disclosure or compliance—to which the minister referred—was Inverness airport. The airport was one of the early PPPs—the acronymic offspring of PFIs so beloved by new Labour. The building cost around £6 million and the contract is so bad that it is having to be bought out. I think I know what the price is—I will not say in case I am sued—but the total repayment cost may be around £35 million. There was a public sector comparator for that contract, showing how much it would have cost in 1998 when new Labour approved the contract. Guess what? That information has been withheld. Why? Because it is an embarrassment to new Labour, which approved the PPP. That is why it withheld the information. Unless Labour fundamentally changes its approach to the spending of public money, and until we can see how that money is spent, it is preventing us all from doing our job and it is denying the public the democratic right of scrutiny.
I apologise for having to leave the chamber shortly to meet a delegation of Malawians. It was the only time that the delegation was available.
I agree with much of what Jim Wallace said. The culture change that is associated with the provision of information is the most important element of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. We all know what we wanted to change—we wanted to change the culture of Government acting in secret, to stop the routine withholding of information and to create a situation in which individuals had a right to have access to information about themselves and matters in which they had a particular interest, except when such information should be withheld to ensure the efficient operation of Government or other organisations, or to protect the rights of other individuals.
It is important that we strike the correct balance. At this stage, it is reasonable to ask whether we have done that and whether the system is operating in the way in which we wanted it to when the legislation was first introduced. Those are the important issues that we should address. I think that there are some reasons for dissatisfaction. Until now, members have been a bit self-congratulatory about the legislation; that has been the tenor of the debate. I am not sure that we should be as self-congratulatory as some members have been and I will outline why that is the case.
Jim Wallace spoke about changing the culture of Government. In my view, the best index of whether the culture has been changed is whether information is made available as freely as it should be by Government and other bodies. A measure of whether that is happening is whether large numbers of additional freedom of information requests are coming in in areas in which people feel that they are not getting the information to which they are entitled. In some ways, if the information commissioner is doing his job right, he should be working himself out of a job. In an effective system, information is properly disclosed and people do not have to go down the route of making a freedom of information request to get information. We know that that is an idealised situation, that there will always be circumstances in which information is not made available to individuals, sometimes for correct reasons, and that freedom of information requests will be made. However, it seems that the number of freedom of information requests that are being made and some of the issues that are being raised indicate that the culture change that Jim Wallace talked about has not been entirely achieved.
Quite properly, Jim Wallace referred to some cases that suggested that such a change had been achieved. He mentioned the Lord Advocate's disclosure of information about Dunblane, for example, but as a member of the Parliament, I favour greater access than we have at the moment to information more generally. Perhaps we could end the system whereby information is made available in ways that do not allow people to ask questions to which they might legitimately want answers. I am not necessarily accusing Government or anyone else of deliberately withholding information, but one of the tasks of the freedom of information regime is to consider what information is made available to people and to ensure that it is released in a format, and for purposes, that people are likely to want. We should ask the information commissioner to do that.
The second issue that we should highlight is whether the working of the act represents a progression according to clear principles or whether the development of freedom of information has proceeded by case law—in other words, a further release of information or a new determination has been made only when someone has challenged a ruling. In my view, the information commissioner must set and clarify precisely the boundaries between what information should be in the public domain and what information should not be there, because that has not been sufficiently clear. I think that freedom of information has evolved through case law. The system's development has been driven by its application in particular circumstances rather than by the coherent application of a set of principles.
That is my experience of FOI, but some systematic research may be needed to test it. There has been a lack of clarity on the boundaries and, indeed, on people sticking to the boundaries once they have been established. There have also been some interesting shifts in what people initially thought would be released under FOI and what subsequently has been released.
My third point is made from my perspective as convener of the Finance Committee. The cost of delivering on FOI requests is not a trivial matter, either for Government or for other organisations. For example, if one speaks to higher education institutions, one finds that they have to spend significant amounts of money and resources on dealing with FOI requests. Some of the requests that they are dealing with are for information that the institutions should perhaps have delivered in a more effective manner, but other requests are from vexatious litigants who, having gone through appellate procedures, are using FOI as a further mechanism to fight what they see as an inappropriate decision.
As convener of the Finance Committee, can Des McNulty tell the chamber whether there is a mechanism that would allow the committee to audit the information commissioner and any decisions that he might make about the number of staff he needs to look into the growing number of requests?
As convener of the Finance Committee, I have written to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body to raise questions about not only the information commissioner but the other commissioners. An appropriate financial management regime needs to be put in place for those organisations. Perhaps the decisions about how much they need, where they should be located and the other matters that they seem to have taken on board should be taken not just by the commissioners.
The point about financial constraints is important. If the information commissioner is allowing organisations to be severely disadvantaged by FOI requests or to be subject to vexatious requests under the FOI legislation, he would seem not to be fulfilling part of his function.
I will give an example—
Very quickly. You should be finishing, Mr McNulty.
I heard this morning about one enterprising student who asked for information for their essay. They said that they wanted to have the information in a fortnight's time, because their essay was due on that date. One cannot fault the student for their entrepreneurialism, but that is not an appropriate use of the FOI system.
My final point concerns the very real danger that organisations will adapt their behaviour to deal with what they perceive to be vexatious or other inappropriate FOI requests and stop writing letters or producing minutes. Historians who, for some time, have used paper records to record what has happened in the past will be left with deleted e-mails and very little information because all the decisions will have been taken in corridors or by other mechanisms to avoid the production of information that might be the subject of an FOI request.
You must finish now, Mr McNulty.
We must ensure that the freedom of information system that we have in Scotland is appropriate, that it is boundaried—to use the financial term—and that it does not disrupt the rule of Government. The key issue is the culture; the target is to reduce the number of inappropriate requests.
I start by asking the Presiding Officer under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 how long I have got.
That depends on how you behave.
That was an excellent response.
I welcome the debate, which I agree is almost overdue. As other members have mentioned, we need to get the commissioner to put up information so that we can consider whether his role is properly supported or whether it is under pressure.
The minister said that we need to have a review. If we are to have one, we will need to base it, in part at least, on the commissioner's experience. Certainly, any debate would have to be based on the experience of MSPs. Much of the work that we do when people come to our surgeries involves either understanding published information and what it means for our constituent or trying to get information.
I was interested in the notion that Jim Wallace raised about an FOI request leading to information that he had been seen working in a mobile canteen—perhaps we should ask further questions on the subject.
That said, our previous Government had an excellent record on freedom of information. The various pieces of legislation did one thing: they empowered citizens to find out about how their health service worked and other information that they needed for their comfort, security and confidence in their treatment. Those are all things that moved the world on. As Bill Aitken said, the code of practice moved things on. Jim Wallace accepted that.
We have debated the information that people need. What information do they want? Is it in a form that they want to receive it in? Is it helpful to them? The Conservatives put in place performance tables for schools and hospitals and published response times of police and ambulance services to emergency call-outs. The result of that was an improvement in the services and an increase in their accountability and efficiency. As Bill Aitken said, between 1992 and 1997, nearly 80,000 records were released by departments and the Public Record Office.
Members know that we did not support the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 because we felt that there was a risk that it could lead to a reduction in transparency and accountability. We were also concerned about the creation of a number of exemptions for Scottish ministers that could prevent them from having to disclose potentially embarrassing information.
Openness means more than freedom of information; it means local accountability and ensuring reasonable public access to information that affects people's lives without breaching the security and confidentiality of the individual and—in the case of the Parliament and other organisations—staff.
Will the member pass judgment on what has happened? Has the legislation reduced transparency? Has it meant that less or more information is available? I hear what the member is saying about what he was concerned about before the legislation came into force, but I would like to know what his judgement is now.
As a member of the Local Government and Transport Committee, on which I serve with Fergus Ewing, I asked a written question requesting information on the ferry tendering process, which the minister claimed was forced on him by Europe. I asked the minister to publish the legal advice that had helped him to make a decision on that. My request was denied. I think that that illustrates a problem that must be dealt with. We have to improve the situation. I am happy that we move forward and look to the future, but there is a concern that there will be difficulties in getting hold of certain information. For example, health board chairmen are appointed by the minister to deliver the Executive's policy, which means that the trail goes back to the minister. That will cause problems in terms of getting certain information out.
On the matter of the 280 or so cases relating to MSPs' expenses and the welcome letter from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, in 1999 I participated, on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives, in the setting up of the Parliament's first allowances scheme. I am proud of the fact that my suggestion that there should be no payment without receipts was adopted by my colleagues in that group, Mike Russell, Robert Brown and Jack McConnell.
The Conservatives realise that we need to have a far more sophisticated system of reporting. However, as Bill Aitken has stated, the system must be fair and must apply to all members, regardless of their role in the Parliament. Even when I was a councillor, we had special forms to fill in. Of course, now we have the intranet-based system.
If every elected politician in the UK—councillors, MSPs, MPs, MEPs and members of other Assemblies—operated to the same system, that would be a move towards fair transparency. When we get such a system, the public will have more respect for this Parliament and for politicians in general. I challenge our friends and colleagues in the media to join us in a similar system.
The remaining speakers should stick to the four-minute limit. If they do so, I might be able to call everyone.
Perhaps puzzlingly, I will begin by saying something about Werner Heisenberg. Members might be confused by the fact that, in a debate on freedom of information, I mention not only a quantum physicist but one who was dead long before the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 came into force. However, I mention him because one of his best-known achievements is the development of the idea that it not possible to observe a system without altering it.
Heisenberg argued that that is true at the quantum level, where the presence of a photon can affect the energy of a subatomic particle. If he were here, he would probably agree that the principle is far more powerfully demonstrated in the case of the Scottish Parliament allowances office and the many other institutions that have been coping with large numbers of FOI requests. Our effort to make information clear and to allow systems to be observed is having an impact on them.
If the reports that we have read today are even vaguely true—that the capacity of an office can be taken up for as long as nine months in responding to requests for information under the 2002 act—the consequence might be not only to affect the system but to prevent it from doing what it is there to do. The legislation might itself end up being the cause of a great many of the problems that could ultimately get reported on as news.
FOI is an important principle, but we must be clear about exactly why it is important and what kind of impact we want it to have on the systems that people in Scotland have a right to observe and scrutinise. The Minister for Parliamentary Business made it clear that she regards FOI as being about openness, transparency and the individual citizen having a right to information on decisions affecting their lives and on how those decisions are made. Is the FOI legislation achieving that purpose? Has that been its effect? I am sure that it was never intended for any allowances office or other part of the public sector to be prevented from operating normally as a result of the legislation.
What can we do to ensure that the effect of the rights that the act gives is the one that we want to achieve? First, we must acknowledge that the act is being used by a large number of people in the way that was intended. Individual citizens, campaign groups and investigative journalists are using it for good purposes in holding public bodies to account.
Secondly, we need to ensure that those public bodies that are subject to the act are geared up to respond. I am aware of at least one open-source software company in Scotland that is designing tools specifically to help the public sector to respond to large volumes of FOI requests, to track their progress and to ensure that they are answered on time. We also need to ensure that we are publishing information that might be subject to FOI routinely, as we see the SPCB is considering doing. Routine FOI requests could be answered more simply by pointing to information that is already available.
Thirdly, we should be looking to broaden the scope of the legislation to all organisations that provide public services. I was recently looking again at George Monbiot's book "Captive State", which I first read a number of years ago, and his investigation into the issues to do with PPP. Given the fact that many members have had a long interest in those issues, I think that if all organisations providing public services were subject to FOI, a much stronger case could be made not just on George Monbiot's side of the argument, but on both sides of the argument. There would be better-informed debate—I think that Fergus Ewing alluded to the need for informed debate instead of impaired debate. Subjecting other organisations to FOI would be a step forward.
I congratulate members who were here in the first session to pass the 2002 act, but I hope that, as Kenny MacAskill said, the review takes us forward, not back.
I chaired the Justice 1 Committee in piloting the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill through the Parliament. My party opposed the ministerial veto and we tried to contain the area of commercial confidentiality. Those matters have been addressed in the Parliament today.
I attended a conference in Ghana dealing with freedom of information. The minister could look to South Africa, where freedom of information extends to private companies whose funding is wholly in the public sector. That would deal with the many references that have been made to PPP, the private finance initiative, private prisons and private contracts. We can certainly look abroad when taking those into account. We might also consider British Columbia, where built into the statute is a mandatory review of the operation of the FOI legislation every three years.
As we know from various events this week and as we will see in the months ahead, FOI is a double-edged sword, not just for MSPs but for the Executive. I have had some successful little hits myself, for example concerning the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration. I discovered that data were being double-checked and that the Executive was putting other data in the place of the original data. I have the documents about that. I discovered that the Munchausen syndrome cases review, which the minister instructed the SCRA to undertake, was, to put it kindly, little more than a whitewash, asking previous members of the SCRA what they could remember—there were no records.
There is a strong indication from FOI returns from police files that special branch is actively using informants to report on the activities of my party—the principal democratic Opposition in Scotland. Police warnings have been monitored over a set period as data were not held centrally; I am pursuing that under appeal. This is the time to test the information commissioner.
As others have said, a change in culture is taking place. The days of finding indiscreet memos and e-mails are passing even as I speak. I asked for information regarding meetings on the G8 summit. There were meetings between senior officials of the Parliament and senior officials of the Executive on 16 February and 21 February but, strangely enough, there is no record or minute of those meetings stating the outcomes or purpose of them. Without a paper trail, how can anyone believe that government is genuinely open, transparent and accountable? I do not think there was even any information on Post-it notes; we might start asking for any Post-it notes used over a period of time.
We will see a culture change and I am darn sure that various public bodies are being told, "Be very careful with your e-mails and if you can have a wee word over the water cooler, do not just talk about ‘EastEnders' but get the business done there."
The issue of our expenses has been raised this week. I am of the view that it is a case of publish and be damned. We are damned if we do and damned if we do not. If someone wants to know how much my Galashiels office spends on bottles of milk and toilet roll, they can do so, but that is not what the act was supposed to be about. Those are the minutiae, but we want to find out about the big contracts and what is going on in the background.
I turn to the caveat about taxi destinations. I have no problem with providing that information except that sometimes one takes taxis to meetings that are of the discreet variety, where one is being briefed on an issue that is not to be in the public domain and is not for other members to know about. If we publish times of taxi trips, we are stating that the houses of members who live alone are empty at a certain time, or that, if they are down here, their house up north is empty, for example. There are real issues with security not on a big, grand, pompous scale, but on a private, ordinary scale. Things are already being leaked to the papers before a committee has reported. We are being accelerated into things and members are not being given a chance to participate.
Christine Grahame made a lot of valid points. I will start by talking about some of the gains and successes that have resulted from the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, which I have used. As a trade union activist over a number of years, I battled daily with the likes of Sodexho and the North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust for information about the specifics of the contracts for cleaning, catering and portering. I was not successful in securing that information until the act was passed. I was dancing about my office when I finally got the Sodexho PFI contract for Glasgow royal infirmary—with redacted information of course. The act was useful in that regard.
The act was also useful in the request that I made to Lanarkshire NHS Board, the answer to which showed that there is definitely a two-tier system in relation to representation for list MSPs and constituency MSPs, with public bodies such as health boards discriminating against list MSPs. I have also been successful in uncovering cosy links between the Minister for Health and Community Care and the private health sector.
That is all useful, but the information that is withheld is most definitely a problem. With the act, we are beginning to see that the information that is most desired is exactly the information that is withheld. The public bodies, the Executive or whoever know exactly what kind of information is embarrassing and what people are after, and that is exactly the information that they will use the caveats of the act to try to withhold. That is unacceptable. It is also unacceptable that there are exemptions for the Executive. It is particularly insulting to democracy that there can be prospective exclusions such as those that were made in the run-up to the G8's visit to Scotland. It is precisely those big pieces of information that should be available but which, unfortunately, are withheld.
Governments and public bodies should definitely be transparent and accountable, but I also support the idea that power structures in society should be transparent and accountable. The act does not apply to big corporations or to former public services or assets that have, for private profit, been transferred into the private sector along with the transparency and accountability of their practices. That is completely unacceptable. At a minimum, private companies that are concerned with the delivery of public services should be as transparent and accountable as public bodies.
There should be consistency throughout the Executive on travel and so on. In some cases, confidentiality has been used as an excuse not to give information. I made a request for general information on the salary levels and terms and conditions of MSPs' staff. I do not want to know about individuals' salaries, but I do want to know about salary scales. Information on whether MSPs give their staff decent terms and conditions and wages is relevant because that is a more significant measure of members' integrity than information about how often they use taxis. There are inconsistencies and the principles should be applied across the board.
In my experience, the Executive and public bodies can be obstructive. They know fine well exactly what information people are after, but they obscure it in a pile of irrelevant information. To pin them down, people have to conduct themselves almost as private investigators.
If there is to be a review, it should concentrate on how the act can be improved, widened and made more accessible and consistent. A review should not be about putting the lid on embarrassing situations because the Executive or public bodies do not like the way in which the act is operating in practice.
In debates such as this one, it always strikes me that we in the Parliament and the Government are never done exhorting other organisations—public and private—to review and improve their practices and to look at how they can operate better in the future. We must be not just as willing but more willing to do the same, and freedom of information is a good example of where we can do that.
Over the years, I have taken an interest—some might say an unhealthy interest—in the Parliament's procedures. I have done so from a number of different vantage points—as a minister in the early years of devolution and as a member of the Standards Committee, the Procedures Committee and currently the Audit Committee. I feel strongly about a number of the issues that have been touched on today, but most of all I believe that we still have a long way to go to make sure that the systems and procedures that we put in place in our new system of governance in Scotland do what they say on the tin. Although members have, rightly, identified many improvements that have taken place since the FOI regime was introduced, many members have also identified aspects of the system that are not working effectively. As such, I welcome the minister's commitment to a review and most members' willingness to think honestly and openly as part of it.
I will highlight a few concerns. We must bear in mind the unintended consequences of FOI. The word "proportionality" has been used time and again. There is no doubt that the work that the Parliament, the Executive and other public bodies that operate under the FOI regime have had to do to engage with it has often been disproportionate. That applies not only to the direct time, energy and resource that are expended in dealing with requests, but to the opportunity cost of that time, energy and resource. The eye may have been taken off the ball of bigger systems improvements in organisations—which might negate the need for such a number of requests—because time and energy that could have been directed towards strategic priorities has been spent on dealing with FOI requests.
The second point to which I will draw attention is the strategic emphasis. What concerns me greatly about some of the recent discussion is that we move ever more away from taking a strategic approach to devolution and what we do in this institution and ever more towards delving into the detail and often the trivia of what goes on day to day.
In that context, I will live dangerously by saying a word about a slightly different dimension to the debate on MSPs' expenses from that which others have touched on. If one thing really bothers me about the move to full publication of expenses and the emphasis of recent debate, it is that it skews the perception of what our work is all about and what a politician's role is. I worry that although people will be able to see in tortuous detail some of what we do and some of what is spent, entire aspects of our work as elected members will go unnoticed. We are not on employment contracts, we do not work 9 to 5 and we work in evenings and at weekends. Every woman member who has given birth since the Parliament came into being has been back working within weeks, not months, because we have no framework of maternity leave or the like. Endless midnight oil is burned, personal money is often spent on buying raffle prizes and so on in communities, a lot of direct expenditure never finds its way into expenses claims and the cost of petrol that goes into cars is not always reclaimed.
I complain about none of that, because the job is a privilege. I merely note that we must not just put into the public domain that visible and measurable bit of what goes on in the democratic process. We should by all means retain the FOI regime, but we should improve it and ensure that we are not drawn into a vortex of detail and damage, that we do not divert vital time and energy from strategic priorities and that we create genuinely better and greater openness and better governance for our nation.
Alex Johnstone has a tight four minutes.
I will try to be brief.
The debate has been healthy and we have had a good deal of consistency throughout the chamber. I praise many who have taken into consideration the circumstances of recent days and tried to draw conclusions from them.
As we said at the beginning, the Conservative party opposed the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill. Bill Aitken made clear our reasons for that in his opening speech. It is clear that the implications of freedom of information go well beyond those that we considered in our earliest debates on the subject. For that reason, I must return to the issue that Susan Deacon covered to an extent immediately before I spoke, which is the effect on the behaviour of the press.
We all know that the reason for freedom of information, whether we like it or not, is to make those who are in public life and public office genuinely accountable. For that reason, it is only to be expected that the behaviour and actions of members of the Scottish Parliament should come under some scrutiny and be subject to freedom of information requests. However, the unhealthy, disproportionate interest in members' activities has contaminated the press in Scotland. It has undermined the activities of the Parliament and the Executive, by overshadowing them to an extent. The number of column inches that have been produced in recent months in association with freedom of information requests about MSPs is disproportionate to that for which the genuine work of members has accounted.
As we have seen often, facts have been mixed with speculation, sometimes implication and a little bit of fabrication to make stories that do not hold water but have serious impacts on individuals. We should all be most concerned about that. They came for Keith Raffan and we said nothing. They came for David McLetchie and we did not say much about that, either. However, we must remember that they could come for any one of us next.
My other concern is about privacy, which has been mentioned, particularly in relation to members' staff. I am keen to ensure that whatever we choose to do—I support the Presiding Officer's proposals—we can protect genuine claims to privacy, whenever possible. Members of the Scottish Parliament jealously guard privacy. Consequently, we should be prepared to defend it where doing so is appropriate.
I said that I would be brief, and I intend to be. The actions that we have seen since the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 was passed lead me to suggest that the jury is still out on whether the legislation has been the success that the Executive believed that it would be. Specifically, my greatest concern remains its implications for the Parliament in the months and years to come.
We now come to closing speeches, for which time is very tight.
Freedom of information in Scotland is still at a suck-it-and-see stage. Nobody really knew how the creation of a totally new structure would pan out and, as members have said, we must learn lessons and improve the system. We are doing some things well and other things not so well, but the basic position is that knowledge is good. As Jim Wallace said, knowledge is a vital part of the democratic system. We must therefore start from the basis that we should try to make as much knowledge available to as many people as possible. We must also somehow make people aware that that knowledge is available so that real people—rather than just journalists—will learn about things that they need to learn about.
Jim Wallace deserves great credit for pioneering the legislation in the Scottish Parliament and the Executive—it is obvious that he received good support from the Executive. We have ended up with legislation that is much stronger than the Westminster legislation. I was active in the committee that dealt with the bill and, it might be said, was on the maximalist wing of the committee. There were interesting exchanges. Jim Wallace made some good concessions in some spheres and stood his ground on other matters, but we ended up with much better legislation than the Westminster legislation.
The act has changed the culture here. Obviously, changing culture is not a road-to-Damascus, overnight business, but there has been a genuine change. As Jim Wallace said, the British civil service and British Governments have a long tradition of secrecy, so many people had to change their attitudes considerably.
Not everything is perfect yet, but many national and local government public bodies and quangos have made genuine attempts to be as open as possible. Occasionally, they slip up. I will give a trivial example. For some reason, the Parliament, which has been very open about expenses and all sorts of things, blacked out all the pages of a pamphlet about pigeons. I do not understand why that was done.
Members, the press and other people who are interested need to get more information out of quangos, councils, bodies that give grants and other bodies to ensure that they are efficient and honest and that they do not give preference to people to whom they should not give preference.
There has been some public benefit. In the past, the press mostly simply invented stories, but stories with a factual basis are now produced. They are still often totally trivial, but at least they have a factual basis and do not rely entirely on the imagination of the writer. That is a big step forward.
Archives are worth serious consideration. Archives are not sexy because they are not involved with immediate or recent stuff, but many councils and other organisations have trouble in adequately funding their archives. We must get a good grip on that.
Consideration of what is covered could be expanded to cover commissioners, who have been mentioned. In a muttered conversation that I had with Jim Wallace, we discussed how we never quite understand why legal advice must be sacrosanct. That idea is worth testing.
I do not want us to be self-congratulatory, but we have made a seriously good start. However, we must do much better.
After the week that we have just had, the Conservatives certainly need no lessons about the importance of transparency. I am grateful for the sensitivity that various members have shown in dealing with David McLetchie's difficulties this week. I pay tribute to him as an honest and honourable man.
What is irrefutable is that David McLetchie's expenses claims were all passed by the parliamentary authorities. If David McLetchie erred, so did many of us. The debate has been about much more than MSPs' expenses, but I make no apology for ending on that subject, as it has dominated the headlines this week. By all means, let us be transparent and print every detail of our costs on the internet—it is public money—but let us do a thorough job.
It is never a good career move for a would-be politician to criticise the press but, as I was a journalist for some four decades, perhaps I will be forgiven for uttering a few gently caustic words. I watched one of the luminaries of the media on television the other night telling viewers that not all MSPs were workshy expenses cheats and nor were they all as thick as the public believed. The only loser in all the current bad publicity was the Parliament itself and it was all the fault of a few bad eggs—so now we know. It was nothing to do with the depressing negativity of the media over the past six years, which has shaped public attitudes towards this place; it was all due to a few bad eggs.
I am proud of the 35 years that I spent in Scottish TV journalism, although in recent times I have been reminded of the lines that were penned by the writer and poet Humbert Wolfe:
"You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to."
I wonder whether some of my erstwhile colleagues in the media might not, in their heart of hearts, question their role as scrutineers of the Parliament. I agree with Christine Grahame and others. Should freedom of information not be about something more substantial than MSPs' taxi chits? Taxigate is no Henrygate, far less Watergate. At a time when more money is being spent on public services by the Executive than is being spent anywhere outside the former Soviet Union, and at a time when there is still no sign that massive public waste and inefficiency are being curbed, should reporters not use the substantial powers of freedom of information on something more substantial than a nine-month investigation into MSPs' travel arrangements?
For my part, it has been richly ironic to hear journalists publicly pontificating on the subject of travel costs and expenses. In my previous incarnation as a journalist and an editor, it often seemed to me that as much creativity went into filling out travel and expenses claims as ever went into a newspaper column or a TV report. Clearly, things have changed with the current generation of truth seekers. The response that we will get is that the taxi claims and lunches for which journalists charge do not come from the public purse. Aye, right. We will spare the blushes of the BBC on that one.
Like Kenny MacAskill, I worry about the effect that this relentless spotlight on the personal lives and expenses of members will have on the recruitment of candidates of calibre for the Scottish Parliament. I do not disagree with Susan Deacon, who made an excellent speech, that there is a fair bit of growing up to be done in the procedures that are adopted by the Parliament. However, after this week's blood letting, I wonder whether some of the more perspicacious of our press corps might consider that it is also time for a bit of growing up to be done among their number as well as among parliamentarians.
This is my 215th speech in the Parliament.
It seems like much more.
My 23rd speech was made during stage 1 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill. It came as a bit of a surprise to me, some 18 months after that bill was passed, to find that speech of mine being quoted in Executive literature. It had been kept secret from me that the Executive was using parts of my speech from 17 January 2002 as part of the training material for civil servants. Well, at least I have done something useful while I have been here. I share that honour with Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, Donald Gorrie and one or two other members. Donald, of course, spoke about a muttered conversation with Jim Wallace. I demand that that muttered conversation be published in the interests of freedom of information.
I always mine "Yes Minister" when I want to think about what goes on in the hallowed corridors of power to which we are so seldom admitted. I remember the episode quite early in the first series when Sir Humphrey was talking to his boss the Cabinet secretary about the Cabinet secretary's upcoming retirement. The Cabinet secretary ran through the things that he expected to do after retirement, and said, "I'm taking up a position as the chairman of the campaign for freedom of information." That was written in 1981. Already it was satire and parody. We have been talking about freedom of information for a long time.
Of course, the interesting thing was the expression of horror on Sir Humphrey's face when the Cabinet secretary said that. Then, of course, the Cabinet secretary explained that he was taking the position so that the exercise of freedom could be responsibly discharged. That is precisely what the Tories sought to do in 1994—to create an environment not where the public determined the information that was brought into public gaze, but where Government ministers and civil servants exercised a "responsible attitude" to freedom of information.
I welcome the passing of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. Notwithstanding some of the wrinkles that have emerged subsequently, on balance it is very much in the public interest and in the interest of parliamentarians in all parties.
Phil Gallie, a representative of the Tories, suggested that much of the information could have been released. That is perfectly true, but there is a huge difference—albeit of one letter, but huge in sentiment—between could and would. Could did not mean would. The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 under which we now operate has made a world of difference.
I was slightly surprised that Bill Aitken appeared to forget that the information commissioner is a creature of this Parliament, not of the Executive. We should remember that fact.
I give members the words that the Executive plucked from my previous speech:
"A desire to keep information is always an expression of someone's self-interest".—[Official Report, 17 January 2002; c 5499.]
Self-interest has now been laid at the door of public interest, which is welcome.
There is a lot more work to do to see how things operate. I point in particular to section 6 of the 2002 act, on publicly owned companies. Section 6(2) states that a company is publicly owned if it is
"wholly owned … by the Scottish Ministers"
and
"if it has no members except … persons acting on behalf of the Scottish Ministers or of such companies".
That touches upon PFI—private companies, single purpose, totally at the work of Scottish ministers. We must be much better at opening the dirty raincoat and seeing what is going on.
We will not be quoting that.
I see that Mr Finnie has a particularly capacious dirty raincoat about which he is worried.
Please wind up, Mr Stevenson.
I used "sensitive" in my speech three years ago in the generally understood sense. Sensitive information is precisely the information that should now be being disclosed.
I know that you are pressed for time, Presiding Officer, so I will try to be brief.
I do not know how to follow Stewart Stevenson. I imagine that he could be used for all sorts of training in the Executive. I might study his words in more detail than perhaps I have in the past.
The debate has been good and wide ranging. We have examined what should be disclosed, how the review will work, how we will deliver the culture change that is required, and how we respond as ministers and MSPs. We have also questioned whether we need FOI at all.
Some details that have been highlighted in the debate point to the very reasons why I am introducing the review and why I want it to be conducted in a certain way. This marks the beginning of our on-going engagement with Parliament.
After hearing some of the arguments, I think that disagreements will continue. However, we need to strike a balance; just because others disagree with us, it does not mean that we should accuse them of having sinister motives. It is to the Executive's credit that it has introduced FOI and that it wants the process to work.
I listened intently to members' deliberations, which will be informative as we take forward the review, and had the impression that people feel that we must immediately solve every problem and meet every challenge raised by FOI. I do not know whether that is possible, because we need to grow into this culture change.
I am struck by the fact that other jurisdictions' standard response to FOI has been more proactive disclosure. We need to address that issue but, for the record, I favour that approach myself. I was asked how the Executive responds to requests for information about ministers' use of cars and expenses. All I can say is that we do so as proactively as we can. Indeed, last week, we received a request about one minister's use of cars; the document that I am holding up is our response. It contains all the details, apart from those that are affected by certain security considerations that everyone accepts. However, it shows that we are prepared to accept the challenges of FOI; indeed, that is why we introduced it.
I have deliberately stayed away from mentioning some personal issues that have been mentioned in the press this week. However, I put on record my support for the proactive disclosure of MSPs' expenses. Although I do not want to get into personal details, we must acknowledge that in the minds of the Scottish public FOI has done an effective job of holding us to account for the money that we spend on people's behalf. We must come to terms with the fact that FOI is here to stay.
I was concerned by the fact that, almost exclusively, the Tories questioned the fundamental reasoning behind FOI's introduction. As many speakers, most notably Jim Wallace, pointed out, we have introduced a profound culture shift in the governance of Scotland and in the way we do our business. We have moved from a presumption of secrecy to a presumption of the public's right to know.
Does the minister agree that the concept of freedom of information in our society is not novel? After all, hundreds of years ago, Rabbie Burns wrote:
"Here's freedom to him that wad read,
Here's freedom to him that wad write!
There's nane ever fear'd that the Truth should be heard,
But they whom the Truth wad indite."
John Swinburne rendered that quotation very effectively. Although I have recited the poem many a time at Burns suppers, I will remember and practise the way he delivered it.
Mr Swinburne is absolutely right to quote that Burns poem, because it shows why FOI is such a powerful weapon. Indeed, it leads me to the fundamental point of difference between us and the Tories. They believe that this access to information would have happened anyway; however, we feel that we should not rest on the good will of those with power and influence generously to hand out information when they see fit. Instead, we believe that access to information is a fundamental right of Scots. The evidence against the Tories' position is that FOI is a key feature of progressive regimes throughout the world. I reassure the SNP that, in undertaking the review and developing freedom of information, we will look forwards, not backwards, and that we will increase Scots' access to information.
Will the minister give way?
Will the minister give way?
No. The minister is in her final minute.
In the short time that it has been in force, FOI has become part of how we are restoring the Scottish public's faith in the performance of the Parliament and the Executive. I believe that it is a valued, if imperfect, piece of legislation. It is a significant tool in the hands of Scots, and we are determined that it will be used effectively and efficiently.