The government misled this newsletter over Liz Truss FOI - why?
Cabinet Office told us it treated an FOI request from Emily Thornberry ‘in the usual way’ - now cabinet secretary Simon Case had admitted that this isn’t true
We recently reported on the curious story behind Liz Truss’s £15,000 tax-payer funded bills for food and booze on private jets.
The story was based on a Freedom of Information request. What was curious was that the FOI response was sent straight to the news desk at Politico instead of the requester, Labour shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry, who had been trying to obtain the information for almost two years.
The government’s apparent attempt to bury the story on budget day failed, but the whole episode raised serious questions about the abuse of FOI law for political ends.
When I was reporting the story I contacted the Cabinet Office with a series of specific questions. They refused to say anything on the record but insisted that the “FOI response was issued to the requester in the usual way.”
Well, we can now say for certain that it wasn’t.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, in response to a letter from Thornberry, has admitted that he “can confirm that the journalist was notified shortly before you received your reply.”
Case added that “this was not the intent and was an error in the sequencing of the messages. It should be the case that the requester receives the FOI first and we endeavour to make sure that happens and should have done so in this case.” [Case’s letter is attached below]
All of which begs a crucial question - why did the Cabinet Office tell this newsletter something very different?
Was the government just making an honest mistake? Or was it - once again - trying to bury a bad story?
As a spokesperson for Emily Thornberry told this newsletter: “It would be easier to believe that this was an innocent mistake if it hadn't come after two years of concerted efforts by the Cabinet Office to stop this information being released.”
The shadow attorney general’s office also noted that Case had failed to address her questions about whether any special advisers had been involved in the release of the information, and if so, on what basis that had been allowed.
The Cabinet Office isn’t any old government department. It’s basically the PM’s office. It’s also responsible for FOI policy and compliance - and it has a history of “managing” responses for political ends.
The Cabinet Office’s ‘Clearing House’ - which was vetting ‘sensitive’ FOI requests - was shut down after Jenna Corderoy, Lucas Amin and I revealed its ‘Orwellian’ operation. But the Cabinet Office remains a place where FOIs go to be buried.
We have dozens of requests that, like Thornberry’s, have been delayed by the Cabinet Office for months. We are already appealing to the Information Commissioner, but don’t hold your breath.
Anyone who cares about accountable government should be deeply concerned by this sorry state of affairs. We all pay a high price when government secrecy goes unchallenged.
That’s why Democracy for Sale will continue pushing for transparency and accountability - and will keep digging to expose when government is misleading us. Sunlight is the best disinfectant - as David Cameron once said. (Before he became a lobbyist.)
And finally…. We’re off on holidays for a couple of weeks so the newsletter might be quiet for a bit - but rest assured, there’s some really juicy investigations coming on the other side!
Meantime, a few of you were in touch to say how much they enjoyed my recent appearance on Pod Save the UK, talking about dirty money and democracy for sale.
So here is the full show. The segment is c. 18 minutes in. My highlight? The wonderful Nish Kumar saying he knows a great corruption story because it “reeks of Geoghegan” 🙂
I'm just imagining you pacing your office and taking a series of deep breaths before having to type "Was the government just making an honest mistake?"
Nothing but contempt for these people especially the “ill” case the spineless specimen who couldn’t/daren’t the Covid inquiry 🤮🤮