Home Office error reveals how FOI request handled
The Home Office postponed an FOI release of research on drugs policy because it wanted "to avoid a focus on the gaps in the evidence base" on the effect of its strategy.
Officials also advised ministers that their decision on disclosure had to take into account the risk that the information could be used to criticise government policy.
Home Office civil servants have inadvertently revealed this to the BBC in a separate freedom-of-information response in which they left in material clearly intended for deletion.
The delayed disclosure involved the Drugs Value for Money Review, an analysis carried out in 2007 into the effectiveness of government spending on combating drug use. This was requested under freedom of information in early 2008 by Transform, a group which campaigns for drugs to be legalised under a system of regulation.
The report was eventually released [5.11MB PDF] in January this year, but until then the Home Office had been maintaining that publication was against the public interest. At first it refused completely, then it agreed in principle but argued that it wanted to wait until a related National Audit Office report was also ready.
The material accidentally sent to the BBC [204.79Kb PDF] includes a submission prepared for ministers in November 2009 on the handling of the Transform FOI request. This states [70.33Kb PDF]:
And naturally when the report was published Transform did indeed pick up on what it saw as the gaps in evidence-based evaluation of Home Office drugs strategy. The National Audit Office study was issued in March, and it turned out that it too criticised the lack of an evaluative framework.
The civil service submission to ministers, which was copied to the permanent secretary David Normington, also suggested that the decision on whether to disclose the report should take into account the risk this would help Transform criticise government policy. It said [53.51Kb PDF]:
The FOI application was made by Danny Kushlick from Transform, who told me: "Writing that down is fairly dumb. Sending it to you is even sillier."
He added:
"This revelation is outrageous. It would appear to show civil servants, from the permanent secretary down, breaking the spirit of the law, with the support of ministers. It shows the government withholding information for fear of being punished in the press. This fear meant that information was kept from the eyes of both the public and indeed parliament during the period that it was developing policy. The result is bad policy."
A Home Office spokesperson commented:
"We take our obligations under the Freedom of Information Act very seriously. In this case, the report was originally exempted because it would have been likely to prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs.
"The Freedom of Information Act is applicant blind. Regardless of who the applicant is, all requests for information are assessed and answered in the same manner.
"It is the duty of Government to properly explain its policies and so we identify at an early stage subjects likely to be of wider public interest. This means we can answer any additional questions from the public or the media in a considered, accurate and timely way.
"Similarly, FOI requests from the media or pressure groups will often attract significant wider attention, more so than requests from members of the public for example, and so they are flagged as well. This ensures the department can properly and promptly answer any follow-up questions when the information appears on the website."
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Well done for continuing this expose and trying to hold these political and policy wonks' feet to the fire(so to speak). FOI will give us all a much more transparent view of process and events, but we need to be aware that the CS has years of practice in deception and smoke N mirrors. This is all about power and the money that it accrues. Whatever happened to duty and service?
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It's time for government to do the right thing and repeal prohibition. It has never and can never work. Prohibition has alienated a generation and left minorities vulnerable to police interpretation of an unworkable law.
Prohibition is indefensible and should be allowed to die... time for a new day!
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Incredibly ironic, seeing as getting anything out of the BBC through FOI is impossible.
In fact, you just went through a lengthy court case to stop it didn't you?
The BBC are in no position to judge anyone on this subject.
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It should be clear to anybody who does some research that prohibition is a failed concept that is hugely costly in terms of public money spent, impact on society by creating black markets that are then run by gangs and the impact on civil liberties. There are clearly better ways to handle the matter under public health and regulation that would provide improvement across the board with less funds.
It is also clear there are many vested interests who would like to keep prohibition and the government is at least complacent by not doing what is best for the people. My suspicion that the government was more than just complacent and actually corrupt has been shown to be true judging by this article.
There should be greater publicity of this outrageous behaviour with full and public discussions on the value for money of prohibition with alternative solutions explored.
Prohibition is not in the public interest and covering up reports which show this to be true should involve mass sackings!
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:D speachless either staged pathway or genuine fear of change ?
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Now what? how can we act on this information, or will it be conveniently forgotten about like everything else that matters?
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Martin sorry to link to another colleague but this is an important topic ;) Critical public interest http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/
Budgood the Transform policy share it with people join them on facebook get your friends to have a look at www.nicepeopletakedrugs.org today was world drug day people were executed to celebrate..........
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By repealing the Misuse of Drugs Act we could save huge amounts of money. We could give the tourist industry a huge boost and also end the funding of terrorism and other criminal activities.
The only reason for retaining the current policy is... well no one really knows. Is it a religious thing?
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the Problem is MODA71 is a sound and solid piece of law just applied in the wrong way with to many blind eyes turned by the government and its ministers..
there are No illegal drugs, they are just commodities that you are not allowed to own MODA 71 criminalises the person is aimed at the person and has nothing to do with the commodity of drugs, if it did then alcohol would be right alongside heroin.
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The fact is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 regulates human behaviour and cannot make any drug illegal. Thus, it is human liberties that are trod on by the precautionary principle inherent in the current War on some people who use some Drugs. And whilst the Act does not effectively control drugs, they won't behave, it does provide a very smart mechanism by which a properly regulated drug commerce can manage both harms and benefits. It's a shame that the Secretary of State and most who write on this topic are not aware of the flexible possibility of ss7(1)-(2), 22(a)(i) and 31(1)(a) when read together. If by s31(1)(a) re 'General provisions as to regulations' the Secretary of State 'may make different provisions in relation to different controlled drugs, different classes of persons, different provisions of this Act or other different cases or circumstances' and by s7(1) re 'Authorisation of activities otherwise unlawful under foregoing provisions' the Secretary of State, may make 'provision as (s)he thinks fit for the purpose of making it lawful for persons to do things under which any of the following provisions of this Act, that is to say sections 4(1), 5(1) and 6(1), it would otherwise be unlawful for them to do', then i should be able to buy a clean unadulterated MDMA tablet or three from Boots for my weekend if the Secretary of State, the ACMD and the Parliament thought that would reduce or eliminate 'Ecstasy' fatalities and other 'harmful effects sufficient to constitute a social problem', s1(2), more effectively than a blanket prohibition of some but not all 'dangerous or otherwise harmful drugs'. The Secretary of State and the Home Office minions need to see that the Act drafters foresaw the possibility of a completely and wisely regulated controlled drug commerce.
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I have no particular interest in the matters which related to the FOI request.
However, it does ahow up how officials are either ignorant of facts, refuse to accept thoses facts or worse still are out of step with policy as handed down by the elected representatives.
They then attempt to cover their inefficiency, inadequacy or downright incompetence - to say nothing of disobedience - by obstructing FOI requests.
This is not just a Home Office problem - it pervades all of Whiteheall and local government too. Truth is subsumed to personal self-preservation and advancement.
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"...gaps in the evidence base"? Here's a rather large one from the Fifth Report to the House of Commons relating to the misuse and classification of drugs:
"Sir Michael Rawlins, Chairman of the ACMD*, told us: "I have no idea what was going through the minds of the group who put [psilocin]in Class A in 1970 and 1971…It is there because it is there". The Home Office has admitted that it has never conducted any research into psilocin use and that there is "no clear evidence of a link between psilocin use and acquisitive or other crime."
* ACMD = Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
With such well researched information going into our drugs laws, how could we fail to feel confident in national policy?
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I'd julst like to pick up a point here that it's not as black & white as you all seem to like shouting about.
The deleted section actually refers to a point that would be extremely valid in a FOIA public interest test. The fact that a set of information is 'patchy and incomplete' and is likley to have those holes somewhat filled in by a, soon-to-be-published, more detailed analysis is an argument for witholding the information in order to avoid misleading the public.
The problem here is that the Home Office refer specifically to Transform, which of course was only natural considering they were the requester. If they'd referred to 'the public' there might be less of an issue.
It was not a serious attempt at a cover up, merely an expression of the likely impact of the release of the report before the NAO report came out.
As it turned out the NAO report didn't do them any favours so they were at a bit of a loss but they weren't wrong in waiting to see.
If you want to reply to this post please know that I have no interest in debating the rights and wrongs of the drugs laws, I'm an information rights practitioner.
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Martin - good story.
secretgeek - You make a reasonable case. But why would releasing the results of a preliminary, patchy trial 'mislead the public' just because the results of a more robust trial are likely to come out soon? From the Home Office point of view, they were hoping that the more robust trial would happen to produce a more positive result. Not a more robust one. It wasn't about keeping the public well-informed, it was about positive PR.
In my long experience of FoIing the Home Office, this is always at the top of their mind. I'm sure other public bodies are the same.
What is in the public interest is this: Publish the results of the preliminary trial now, explaining all the caveats. Then, when the more robust results come out, publish them too, explaining why they are more robust.
If public servants treat the public as intelligent people who can understand caveats, then we will all benefit.
What if the preliminary results of the non-robust test had been positive rather than negative? I would like to think that the Home Office would have taken the same approach and refused to release them ... but the recent case of Jacqui Smith and the premature announcement of preliminary, sketchy knife crime figures that happened to be positive tells me that that is not the case.
Ben Leapman
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BenLeapman - I've not read anything other than this article but as I understand the 'deleted' section it is not the results of the trial that are in question but the method of evaluation. The reason that the information may be misleading is that focussing on the poor evaluation is likely to mean that any valid results are also disregarded or devalued (as you and other commenters have indeed gone and done).
'Baby and bath water' if you like.
To wait until an updated, robust and thorough evaluation is released seems reasonable given the relatively short period of time between the two. I would say however that if the gap between the two reports were significant then the argument for witholding would be lessened proportionally.
'If the results had been positive instead of negative'? Then the report would have suffered the same criticism of the evaluation method anyway and it would have made no difference apart from the fact that Transform would have focussed on that aspect of it instead of the method of evaluation. The argument for witholding would have remained the same. Whether that would have happened in reality is of course debateable and as you point out, Government is certainly prepared to push out a poorly established report too soon if they think it suits them.
I can't comment on Home Office motives but Annex D certainly supports your argument about spin over information.
Caveats are all well and good (if they're taken account of) but if the need for them can be avoided by a judicious use of timing then isn't that preferable to the obvious risk of misinforming?
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Perhaps I can provide some useful grist to this thread:
1 The fact that the Home Office could even argue that the NAO study would provide better evidence only occured because they'd hung on unwarrantedly to the VFM study for nearly three years.
2 The Home Office knew that there was no new evidence, which is why the NAO told them that there was no evaluation framework, let alone data to show that the drug strategy was effective.
3 The request was not treated as applicant blind. It not only mentions me and Transform. It says that we might cause problems for the Home Office with it AND that that is a reason to consider withholding it.
4 If you take a look at the VFM document you will see that there is nothing in it that is misleading. It's a study, on the best available data that shows VFM. It is patchy and incomplete because that is the reality of the situation as it relates to drug policy evaluation. Drug policy is poorly evaluated because it is not in the Government's interest to expose its miserable failings for all to see. That is the point of the VFM study.
5 Transform does not benefit by cherry picking evidence. We invariably make all documents available. The irony is that the Home Office were criticised for cherry picking evidence during the public consultation on the drug strategy in 2008, by both te Advisory Councl on the Misuse of Drugs and the Statistics Commission.
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Sirs,
Just as a casual heads up for individuals and journalists trying to use the Freedom of Information Act process from an American perspective... there's a number of tricks bureaucracies in the U.S. use to avoid complying with requests (it was so bad after 9/11 that even the Chair of the Intel Committee for the U.S. lower House didn't understand the categories). The first is the "internal use only" designation, which surrenders the legal protection and punishment for possession that a "classified" document has, but which doesn't have to be catalogued in a discoverable manner vis a vis FOI searches. The second is the "special category" of documents, which relate to some Code Name secret or strange event, and as such don't really fall under a clear departmental or categorical label (e.g. technically NO ONE in the government has 'authority' over the subject, although every department has boxes of files on said subject... but lacking authority, the department can't release what it has without approval).
Another trick is to claim past mistakes led this or that department to collect all the documents related to a specific subject like... Dr. Robin Giffard, a physicist from Oxford who passed away around a decade ago (give or take)... due to the nature of his late work (when Cesium-beam fountains were going to an optical standard), and to reclassify boxes of his notes and correspondence under a code number designate rather than his name. I myself am currently having a problem of this exact nature, as my government reclassified a wide swath of docs authored or related to/by me under a classified program in a different field, and as I don't have "security clearance" to possess MY OWN ORIGINAL WORK, there are actually government agents in my Country who believe I'm a SPY because I possess material I haven't been "vetted" to access (never mind that I created it in the first place). LOL. Seriously.
Probably nothing that weird happens in the UK, but still, you all are the Nation that invented Red Tape, so it shouldn't be too surprising that the FOI process is frustrating and illogical. In this area at least, being surpassed by American paper pushers is something to be thankful regarding. heh.
Best,
Alexander Crawford
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