How parliament tried to cheat on Freedom of Information
Monday, November 20, 2006
First, a Freedom of Information request was made, asking for a breakdown of the travel expenses claimed by individual MPs for the past year. I presume the complainant wants to know if politicians are as environmentally friendly as they say they are. I wonder how many times David Cameron or Tony Blair took a bus last year?Anyway, the House of Commons withheld the information, claiming it was exempt under section 40(2) of the act.
The commissioner wasn't convinced, and found that disclosing the information wouldn't contravene the Data Protection Act. Therefore, the Commissioner concluded that "the House has breached section 1(1) of the Act in that it incorrectly withheld the requested information".
The outcome? The House of Commons had a further 30 days to come up with the information. Funnily enough the juicy bit isn't published on the FOI website. And I wanted to know how much that famous bicycle helmet cost...
Labels: David Cameron, Freedom of Information, House of Commons, Tony Blair
posted by Blamerbell @ 3:58 pm,
