Sir Cover-Up under f ire again... for covering up his spending
SIR Jeremy Heywood’s Whitehall department is under official investigation for failing to reveal how it spends huge sums of public money.
The Cabinet Office has fallen a year behind on a key pledge to publish details of all transactions over £25,000.
The probe by the Information Commissioner is a major embarrassment for Sir Jeremy, who is dubbed Sir Cover-Up for his attempts to block the disclosure of official data. Campaigners said the delay was completely unacceptable.
To ‘root out waste’, all ministries are expected to publish monthly data on high-cost contracts and items.
The commitment is a key plank of David Cameron’s mission to lead ‘the most transparent government ever’.
But the last data released by the Cabinet Office was for December 2014 – by far the worst record in Whitehall.
And the Information Commissioner’s Office has revealed it is looking into two separate complaints that the Cabinet Office is suppressing data that should be publicly available.
The watchdog has the power to slap fines on public authorities in breach of their publication schemes and can make them release the required data.
Even a decision to take ‘informal action’ – by asking why the information is being withheld, and offering advice – would be a blow to Sir Jeremy and Mr Cameron.
Dia Chakravarty of the Taxpayers’ Alliance said: ‘This huge delay is completely unacceptable and shows a worryingly lax attitude toward taxpayers’ right to access crucial information about how our money is spent.
‘It is astonishing that not only is the Cabinet Office failing to carry out its responsibility of publishing the data, but also refusing to give a proper explanation as to the reason for this tardiness.’
Most Whitehall departments have released data up to and including October or November last year, putting them only a few weeks behind the timetable set by the Treasury.
When the first tranche of spending items above £25,000 was revealed, in November 2010, the Prime Minister said: ‘Just think about what this could mean. People will be able to look at millions of items of government spending, flagging up waste when they see it, and that scrutiny will act as a powerful straitjacket on spending, saving us a lot of money.’
In 2013, the Cabinet Office pledged to match other departments that have voluntarily lowered the threshold to just £500.
Sir Jeremy’s department also has the worst record in Whitehall for releasing data to the public under Freedom of Information laws.
Across Whitehall, information is withheld in 34 per cent of cases on average when it could potentially be released. For the Cabinet Office, the figure is 57 per cent.
Last week, Sir Jeremy was branded ‘Sir Cover-Up’ in Parliament as MPs and peers railed against proposals that the Freedom of Information Act should be curtailed. A commission launched from his department is looking at how to undermine the legislation, potentially by introducing new costs or time limits for making requests.
Lord McNally, a Lib Dem who was in charge of the FoI Act under the Coalition, said Sir Jeremy’s Cabinet Office was ‘deeply hostile to being open about what it is doing’.
Last night, a spokesman declined to explain why the Cabinet Office had fallen one year behind, while insisting unspecified problems were being tackled.
She said: ‘This Government is absolutely committed to transparency and we make more of our data available than ever before.
‘We know we need to improve and start publishing data faster.’