Death crash biker named
A BIKER involved in a crash last month has died, police said yesterday.
Mark Allan, 54, of Halkirk, was on a blue Suzuki which was in a collision on May 25 on the A836 in Caithness.
He died at Inverness’s Raigmore Hospital on Friday. Police appealed for witnesses. BY DAVID CLEGG Political Editor SNP ministers have been meddling in the Freedom of Information system in a bid to stop the media holding them to account.
A probe by Scotland’s information watchdogs found journalists were “significantly less likely to receive information” and suffered “unjustifiable, significant delays”.
The damning findings came after journalists from media outlets including the Record took the unprecedented step of writing a joint letter of complaint to Information Commissioner Daren Fitzhenry.
Freedom of Information laws were brought in by the Blair government to improve transparency.
In a scathing report, the commissioner demanded the Scottish Government end their practice of treating journalists, MSPs and political researchers differently “because of who or what they are”.
It said: “Journalists, together with MSPs and political researchers, are expressly made subject to a different process for clearance than other requester groups.
“This is inconsistent with the applicant-blind principle of FoI legislation. Their requests are almost invariably subjected to an additional layer of clearance which is likely to delay consideration of the case.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly boasted about leading a transparent government.
Scottish Tory MSP Adam Tomkins said the report “exposed Sturgeon’s secret Scotland”.
He said: “People will conclude the SNP Government is trying to stop bad news happening, and its woeful performance being publicised, by meddling in this process.
“That is outrageous, and all cabinet ministers involved, and indeed the First Minister, have urgent questions to answer.”
Scottish Green MSP Andy Wightman said: “This is a damning report and vindicates the complaints of many journalists and researchers that Scottish ministers are slow and inconsistent in how they release information that the public are entitled to.”
Lib Dem MSP Tavish Scott said: “The SNP have politicised information which people have a right to receive.
“They have been found out and now rebuked. Nothing less than an apology for their behaviour will be acceptable.”
The Scottish Government said they would accept the findings of the report in full.
Parliamentary Business Minister Joe Fitzpatrick said: “Being open and transparent is a priority set out in our programme for Government.
“As the report highlights, we have already implemented a number of changes that have resulted in significant improvements to our FoI performance.
“In the first five months of 2018 we responded to 93 per cent of FoI requests on time, exceeding the 90 per cent target set by the Information Commissioner – a 10 per cent increase on last year.
“Last year, the Scottish Government responded to over 5000 queries from journalists in a matter of hours.”