The Conservatives are accusing Labour ministers of trying to cover up failings in immigration policy because of the way the Home Office responded to a freedom of information request. This follows a story in the Sunday Times about how immigration officials had been allowed "to take risks" when tackling a backlog of applications to live in the UK.

This article was based on a Home Office FOI disclosure. It's been followed up in the media elsewhere.

The shadow home secretary Chris Grayling told the House of Commons: "More and more evidence is now emerging to suggest that the government broke freedom of information laws and tried to cover up a deliberate change of policy designed to encourage much higher levels of immigration."

The government of course rejects this. But in any case the funny thing about all this is that the "evidence" is contained in documents which have been publicly available on the Home Office website for seven months.

They were published on the department's log of FOI disclosures on 9 April.

The Home Office was forced to disclose them by a ruling from the Information Commissioner [280KB PDF], which also accused the department of missing deadlines and "failure to engage with the Commissioner's investigation".

So what does this tell us? To start with, perhaps opposition politicians and journalists (yes, me included) should read the FOI disclosure logs of government departments more carefully.

But perhaps it also tells us something about the relationship between the web and the media. Documents are available on the internet for anyone interested to read for several months - yet it's only when the mainstream media focus on them that other journalists and politicians get interested.

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Winter is approaching, and it's getting cold in Whitehall - uncomfortably so, for some.

There's an icy gale blowing through the offices of public authorities, and it's driven by freedom of information - that anyway is the view of some FOI-sceptics in officialdom.

While many others are worried about global warming, these people are concerned about the "chilling effect" - the idea that publicly disclosing internal discussions would inhibit officials from giving free and frank advice in future. But how cold really are the resulting temperatures?

These arguments are often central to assessing whether disclosing data is in the public interest or not. There's no doubt that some civil servants do genuinely agonise over this, as indicated for example by research earlier this year from University College, London [906Kb PDF].

But those who believe in a powerful chilling affect appear to have much difficulty in persuading the Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal - not least because it would seem to imply that civil servants who respond in that way are rather unprofessional and willing to ignore the Civil Service Code.

All this is strongly illustrated by an important and interesting recent ruling [167Kb PDF] from the Information Tribunal. The case involved an FOI request from the Campaign Against the Arms Trade to the Export Credits Guarantee Department for a risk assessment relating to the Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

Paul Radford, head of ECGD's Credit Risk Analysis Decision, told the tribunal that the impact of disclosure would not be a "chilling effect" but a "freezing effect", which he described as "catastrophic". "He did not know how the ECGD would manage, how it would conduct its affairs, how it would function to demonstrate it was doing a proper job."

This prediction of what sounded like a new ice age that would paralyse ECGD did not impress the tribunal, who dismissed his claims as "exaggerated", his language as "extravagant" and his demeanour as "dismissive".

The tribunal argued that senior civil servants would still have "sufficient courage and independence" to give robust advice, even in the face of potential public scrutiny. It then decided that ECGD should release the material involved to CAAT.

The department maintains it was right to take the case to the tribunal. Its spokesperson says: "ECGD takes its FOI responsibilities seriously, including its duty to protect information that it believes is exempt."

"Mr Radford is a very experienced economist whose contribution to the credit risk management work of ECGD remains highly valued," the spokesperson adds. "He did not intend to be dismissive. It is disappointing that the tribunal interpreted the expression of his genuinely and strongly held views in the way in which it did."

This is one of a number of freedom of information cases pursued by CAAT, which has used the FOI law extensively.

"FOI is very useful", says Ann Feltham from CAAT. "More information about how these huge arms deals are financed is now coming our way. We are definitely better informed, but it has taken a long while."

ECGD is currently considering whether it can appeal against the tribunal decision. So for the moment, we still have to wait to see whether the buildings of Whitehall are transformed into giant freezers.

In any case, always remember there are some people who prefer the cold.

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Last week the information commissioner issued a decision in his oldest outstanding freedom of information case - one that his office has taken the not inconsiderable timespan of four years and five months to determine.

If anyone is still interested, the case involves a request to the Scotland Office for material relating to the Sewel Convention, the convention that Westminster does not normally legislate on matters devolved to Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.

The Scotland Office initially turned down the request, but did release some documents during the commissioner's investigation. And the commissioner has now decided [128KB PDF] that the government was right "for the most part" to keep the rest secret.

Earlier this month the information commissioner's office disposed of another case over four years old (possibly, like buses, after a long wait several ICO decisions come along at once). This one relates to the Hawk 128 advanced jet trainer aircraft, and the commissioner has again decided [116KB PDF] in favour of the partial release of further material.

However, as the latest snapshot [166KB PDF] of the ICO's caseload indicates, the commissioner is still dealing with several other complaints that date back to 2005, most of them involving the Cabinet Office (one of which is mine).

The new Commissioner Chris Graham made some interesting remarks about the delays in his office on an episode last week of the BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action, which assessed the state of FOI nearly five years after it came into force.

Mr Graham admitted that his office took too long to consider complaints, saying "We're not as efficient as we should be". He added that measures were in place to speed up, and that he was also telling public authorities that they had to make the FOI process more straightforward.

He described freedom of information as a cumbersome process like "a complicated stately dance with many parties", so that "it's a question of 'Will you walk a little faster?, said the whiting to the snail'".

This reference to the Lobster Quadrille in Alice in Wonderland, where the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon dance slowly and sadly round Alice while treading on her toes, may indeed capture some of the spirit of how the FOI system operates.

But if Mr Graham and his team are really seeking inspiration from a character in Alice in Wonderland, perhaps they have most to learn from the Mad Hatter.

He informs Alice that as long as you keep on good terms with Time, he'll do almost anything you want with the clock. He can make it go from nine in the morning to half-past one, time for dinner, in a twinkling. Equally well, he can "keep it to half-past one as long as you liked".

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