Immigration risks and FOI
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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Hello Martin.
I thought you might be on this one. The evidence is allegedly "old news" but possibly somewhat unread? Ah!
I was puzzled what what going on in Parliament today because I came in mid statement by Chris Grayling and didn't get the context. But the whole thing entertained me no end and I am sorry if that trivalises a serious subject and one alleged "charge" given to Mr Speaker to rule on. And somebody "chuntering" was it from a sedentary position. But the Beeb has its own politicians? lol
subject: when politics matter dot dot dot hobnail scions nor
anagram: BH politicians torn - told tories cad wontons method
Tell BH not to worry. I gave up on Britain ages ago. Just "mugging" as actors do when they have no lines to say.
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This is going to happen more and more, so I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. Burying bad news has been changed from waiting for attrocities to hiding it under an avalanche of information.
The result is a win/win for whomever is sitting in the hotseat - do as you will, delay the release of information until years after decisions, publish anaemic FOI responses and then hold the moral high ground in any subsequent furore. The debate moves from what was done, to "why are you digging up old news?".
It's genius.
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