Calls to strengthen FOI grow as concerns mount over secretive governance |
As MSPs debate FOI reform, the Scottish Government faces mounting claims of secrecy, evasiveness and a culture that shuts out scrutiny, says Kevin McKenna.
Moves to strengthen Scotland’s Freedom of Information legislation are about to be debated by MSPs. It comes amid fears that the country is being governed clandestinely by secret state actors.
It was the little throwaway asides from David Hamilton that hinted at his frustrations over Scotland’s secret state. At one point in our interview last month, the information commissioner praised the work of the Auditor General, Stephen Boyle. “The current legislation doesn’t permit me to speak to Stephen about things we both see and that's a frustration.”
Referring to documentation in a recent case he’s been investigating, he said: “Not that I’d ever be permitted to see it all.” Mr Hamilton will be a keen observer of today’s stage one debate of the Freedom of Information Reform Bill. Katy Clark, the Labour MSP who is bringing it forward, says that Scotland is at risk of “falling behind” on how much the public are allowed to know about the running of their country.
In yesterday’s Herald, the West of Scotland MSP described the bill as a “final chance” to strengthen the public’s right to know ahead of May’s Holyrood elections. Her conclusions about the Scottish Government’s attitude to voters’ right to know are devastating. If you removed any references to Scotland in her critique you’d form the impression that she was talking about life under a third world military dictatorship.
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The Scottish Government’s refusal to release papers about Nicola Sturgeon’s conduct during the Alex Salmond investigation was “disgraceful” she said. She added that MSPs had “the opportunity to break with the ‘Secret Scotland’ that John Swinney’s party has presided over for nearly 20 years” and that “the SNP is fighting on all fronts to block the release of the Salmond papers in the face of public outrage”.
In the course of interviewing third-sector leaders and key figures in Scotland’s public bodies over the last five years three themes soon emerge that unite them. They all express fear about discussing anything to do with the gender debate and the imposition of pronoun discipline in the workplace and they are each frustrated in their attempts to find why some funding decisions are made. When you venture to ask certain questions pertaining to issues of public concern, they go into shut-down mode. “I’m not supposed to discuss that with you,” they say.
When Donald Dewar re-convened the Scottish parliament in 2000, he was inspired by the philosophy and poetry of Robert Burns who had “believed that sense and worth ultimately prevail. He believed that was the core of politics; that without it, ours would be an impoverished profession.
“Wisdom. Justice. Compassion. Integrity. Timeless values. Honourable aspirations for this new forum of democracy, born on the cusp of a new century. We are fallible. We will make mistakes. But we will never lose sight of what brought us here: the striving to do right by the people of Scotland; to respect their priorities; to better their lot and to contribute to the commonweal.”
In the Nicola Sturgeon/John Swinney era the Scottish Government has actively sought not to do right by the people of Scotland. Integrity has become its enemy. They have turned in on themselves and locked the Scottish people out of their gilded chambers, built and paid for by those very same people. They do not respect the people’s priorities. Rather than contributing to the commonweal, they erode it.
Every few months, a fresh issue emerges concerning the Scottish Government’s customs and practices. In almost all of them, their attitude towards the public is one of contempt. “How dare you even ask us,” they say. In the multi-million-pound Salmond investigation, a sprawling suite of ministers, advisers and senior civil servants have questions to answer. Not the least of these concerned potentially criminal behaviour about leaking privileged details of it to a tabloid newspaper and valid concerns about perjury in the trial itself.
As Scots were suffering during Covid, they assumed that those making life-and-death decisions on our behalf were keeping all messaging and documentation. We would later learn that several key figures at the top of government chose to delete them.
In the unfolding scandal about the deaths of cancer patients at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, the Scottish Government have evaded questions about pressure being exerted to open it prematurely, knowing there was an issue around water contamination. This isn’t mere contempt; this is callousness.
At other times, the Scottish Government simply tells lies. Having pledged to implement the Supreme Court’s judgment on sex and gender, it was revealed that they were secretly challenging it.
And when you think that a new level of infamy has been scraped, beneath which they wouldn’t dare to venture, they confound us further. Angela Constance’s personal conduct at Holyrood over the fate of young girls at the hands of grooming gangs was chilling.
The multi-million-pound legal bill for its obsession with dismantling women’s sex-based rights, suggests a psychosis. NHS Fife were forced to reveal its own massive bill in defending its treatment of Sandie Peggie, having initially told the Information Tsar – and by extension, us - to sod off.
The Scottish people remain none the wiser as to why it’s taken so long and cost so much money to build a single ferry. We do know that Nicola Sturgeon launched the Glen Sannox ferry with painted on windows seven years before it was actually completed.
If you want to know why the Scottish Government annually hands millions of pounds to pet advocacy groups and not to others, don’t waste your time asking. When some MSPs were asked to meet with concerned constituents during the passage of the GRR Bill, they flatly refused.
Nor will you be told why our MSPs seem to be acting as unpaid PR executives for specific lobbying groups, judging by the number of times they host them at Holyrood.
Last week, we got to see the £459k worth of purchases which feature in the embezzlement charges against Peter Murrell, the SNP’s former chief executive and ex-husband of Nicola Sturgeon. Whether Mr Murrell is found to have been guilty of any wrongdoing remains to be seen.
What’s certain is that though these matters occurred over a 12-year period, we will never get to know why only one person has been charged. And why, following a three-year process, the initial court hearing has been postponed until after the Scottish elections.
Kevin McKenna is Scotland’s Feature Writer of the Year