The added value of FOI
You are a cabinet minister running a large department and you want to know more about what's going on within it - what can you do?
You could hope that someone might put in a freedom of information request - at least you could if you are the Justice Secretary Jack Straw.
He has just told a conference that FOI helps make large institutions more accountable not only to ordinary citizens but also to those actually responsible for running them.
He remarked that he signed off on an FOI request last night. As a result he discovered data about numbers arrested for breaches of probation orders.
He added that it will be embarrassing for the government when it comes out - but he felt it was important data and he's now asked his officials why this material is not collected routinely.
UPDATE, 15 May: This is the information to which Jack Straw was referring, published on the Ministry of Justice website.
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You write, "but he [Jack Straw] felt it was important data and he's now asked his officials why this material is not collected routinely"
and earlier, "But no-one can surely deny that, on the example of MPs' expenses, it has increased accountability in the spending of public money."
What I find interesting is how - when a spotlight is turned on the numbers relating to an issue the public consider important - it transforms the amount of scrutiny given to the issue by the Press/Media.
The government is able to prevent a spotlight being turned onto an issue by suppressing the publication of the numbers, as it has done very successfully with MPs' expenses - until now.
I have been trying for many years to have the statistics relating to 'family breakdown' and an index published along with the other neighbourhood indices of deprivation.
Originally the Social Exclusion Unit said there were 8 indicators of deprivation, one of which was 'family breakdown. However, when the indices were published by the ONS at the behest of the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, 'family breakdown' was omitted from the list.
My belief is that this omission [or suppression] arose because the New Labour mantra had become "we shall not promote one type of family structure over another". Therefore, any measurement of outcome differences for different types of family structure became a taboo.
But this is no way to run a country, especially after the Social Exclusion Unit had specified that 'family breakdown' was an indicator of deprivation.
Local leaders - GPs and health visitors, school governors and teachers, parish and district councillors, registrars, faith and other community leaders etc. - should be able to measure the effectiveness of the policies and programmes they are promoting to improve 'domestic and social cohesion' or to reduce 'family breakdown'.
Many of the figures to compile such an index are already collected - marriage/divorce ratio, domestic violence, abortions, teenage pregnancies, STI's, out-of-wedlock births, truancy etc.
I have tried in various ways to ask the right question using the FOI:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/reasons_for_the_omission_of_an_i#comment-2302
so far without success.
But I am sure that if the spotlight could be turned onto the issue of 'family breakdown' through the publication of relevant neighbourhood data and an index, it would bring about a change of attitude towards it.
At present the rather sterile debate consists of the Conservatives bewailing how much social breakdown there is, and Labour arguing it is all caused by poverty.
Do you agree that HMG [DCLG] should be obliged to divulge the real reason for the suppression of this information?
And do you agree - if it were to be published - it would be possible to have a sensible debate about the relationship between family breakdown and poverty and to measure changes by neighbourhood?
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