He would, wouldn’t he? Sir Cover-Up blasts law on anti-secrecy
BRITAIN’S top civil servant has said Freedom of Information requests are having a ‘chilling effect’ on the running of government.
Sir Jeremy Heywood – dubbed Sir Cover-Up – said the law made it harder for ministers and civil servants to formulate policy.
Because the legislation allows the public to demand to see government documents, he suggested officials may be less candid about what they write down.
The Cabinet Secretary also said Whitehall departments faced rising costs as they dealt with requests under the Freedom of Information Act – which helped expose the MPs’ expenses scandal among others.
David Cameron has already launched a controversial review on the future of the legislation – introduced by Tony Blair in 2000.
However, this week 140 media bodies and campaign groups – including the Daily Mail – put their names to a letter outlining their ‘serious con-
‘Like sand in the machinery’
cerns’. They accused the Prime Minister of stuffing a commission on the future of the Act with critics of the law, such as former Labour home secretary Jack Straw.
But speaking to an audience of civil servants on Wednesday, Sir Jeremy said it was right that there should be ‘an independent review by a group of very eminent people’ who could look at the law’s ‘pros and cons’.
One Foreign Office official told the Institute for Government seminar it was ‘like the sand in the machinery that constantly distracts from the process of getting on and delivering on policy’. Sir Jeremy said: ‘Clearly there are some extra costs that come with the Freedom of Information Act, there are some chilling effects, there’s no doubt about it whatsoever.’
However, the Cabinet Secretary said the Act was also ‘a very big positive’, adding: ‘I think in this day and age the public doesn’t stand for secrecy and I think frankly that in most cases the civil service, or public service generally, have nothing to hide.’
Sir Jeremy was nicknamed ‘ Sir Cover-Up’ for his role in blocking the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War from seeing letters and records of phone calls between Tony Blair and George W Bush. In Whitehall since 1992, he served as principal private secretary to Tony Blair in the run-up to the Iraq War. He left the civil service in 2003 to join investment bank Morgan Stanley before returning to Downing Street in 2007.
He told MPs earlier this year he feared officials had become ‘ less candid’ as a result of FoI.
Government figures are also concerned about the mounting costs of answering requests and are considering charges or restrictions in some cases. On Monday, 140 campaigners for transparency said in their letter to Mr Cameron that the terms of reference for the new commission were prejudicial because they make it clear ‘its purpose is to consider new restrictions to the Act’.
The signatories were particularly concerned that Mr Straw ‘has repeatedly maintained that the Act provides too great a level of disclosure’.
Calling the law a ‘vital mechanism of accountability which has transformed the public’s rights to information’, the letter added: ‘We would deplore any attempt to weaken it.’
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