Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
A fresh thread on secrecy
I'm happy to begin a new thread, as Cllr. Alan Stanton suggested, on the subject of municipal secrecy.
IMO, this shouldn't necessarily be focused on our own Borough, because the same formal and informal restrictions apply, I believe, to most if not all local councils. I don't think this is a party political issue, either; I think it mostly relates to the overweaning power of unelected "officers".
Much of it the secrecy appears to be habitual, unnecessary and counter-productive. Because it restricts open debate, it frequently leads to poor, un-rounded and hugely expensive decisions. I'm happy to provide examples.
As an aside, when Alan says:
I'm happy to debate secrecy and whistle-blowing. (But please, please not Ally Pally;
... this overlooks the fact that all Haringey councillors are trustees of this big charity, whether they like it or not. By statute law, our local council is sole Trustee of AP.
It is an administrative convenience cooked up by council employees, that a sub-set of our councillors rotate through the council committee known as the Trust Board. Most councillors don't understand this and are told what to think about it by council staff. In consequence, much responsibility is avoided.
Tags for Forum Posts: Council, blowing, exempt, municipal, secrecy, suppression, whistle
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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"Much of . . . the secrecy appears to be habitual, unnecessary and counter-productive. Because it restricts open debate, it frequently leads to poor, un-rounded and hugely expensive decisions."
I strongly agree.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Alan I think many other councillors, from both sides of the political fence, would agree too. If councillors generally agree that this is a problem, can this not be looked at in a formal way, with a view to promoting more open decision making?
Council employees lack the wider perspective and responsibliities that councillors have. Some of them seem to carry on quite oblivious to what the public's representatives might think, let alone the public itself.
Councillors should not feel that staff are merely deigning to share information with temps, as a favour.
I suggest some rule or guideline that the default position is openness and that attempts at secrecy need to be justified in some way that is testing. This might discourage frivolous secrecy.
One can only give examples of secrecy that are familiar and they are many.
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Having the assumption of openness and transparency as a stated principle is an excellent idea, Clive.
And I guarantee that senior bureaucrats and elected "leaders" of all parties would smile, shake your hand warmly, and fully and completely agree. And then they'll list 101 reasons why it's not always/rarely/pretty much never possible.
So let's speak out - you in the LibDems and me in Labour - proposing the idea and insisting on public commitment.
(Tottenham Hale Ward Councillor)
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Alan I think you over-estimate my influence with the LibDem party; but I'll nonetheless pass on the suggestion you've made via this back-channel, to my Ward councillor who as you know is the LibDem local leader.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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How does whoever has Council secrets, keep them secret?
If, for example, secrets are in documents within the Council, is that not a place to start?
We have mechanisms that allow secrets to be revealed after they are no longer harmful, so why not campaign to apply those mechanisms better?
Or are there secrets I'm not aware of that makes this approach not relevant here?
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Chris the secrets that you're not aware of, fall into two categories:
They are either the known unknowns or the unknown unknowns.
(For that incisive observation, we credit ex-US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld).
I accept there are some things that the general public should not be aware of.
However, with councils, secrecy has become a reflex action. Here's one local example with which I'm familiar:
I was flabbergasted last year in a serious case of Councillor misconduct (leading to millions of pounds of losses), the default position was that press and public were to be excluded.
A decision to allow press and public was to made on the morning of the Hearing itself, despite the fact that the Complaint and Investigation had run for 18 (eighteen) months. This procedure is apparently normal for Standards Committee Determination Hearings.
That example of process might not show contempt for councillors, but I believe the process showed the depths of contempt for the public (scant minutes before the Hearing, a decision was made for the Hearing to be open, but zero public notice is no notice).
We are expected to be grateful for the crumbs of openness falling from the council's table, despite the fact that it is the wider public pay for this degree of contempt.
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So, for example, if all Council documents and emails were unclassified by default, and people within the Council had to apply an 'exempt' status to them (as they do now with some Council minutes), that'd help, wouldn't it?
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Alan might be able to offer an opinion on that one. I have heard that New Labour's Tony Blair now regrets the Freedom of Information Act and yet that's one of the things I would give him credit for.
The case against greater openness, in the government sector (applies to local government also), was made recently by Sir Gus O'Donnell. He argued that civil servants should feel free to put advice in writing to Ministers honestly, without fear that those documents would be forced out by FOI.
I think its fair to say that councils dislike the FoI Act and any enforcement or extension of its principles, they would likely resent.
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Interesting point, Chris. Though as I understand it, what you propose is the current law. But the bureaucratic mindset still tends to prevail. There always seem to be several excellent reasons why some report or other is confidential and exempt from the eyes of residents and councillors.
Clive, I can see the value of particular forums - for example under the Chatham House rule. But even so, I'm surprised to find you of all people lining-up on the side of the bureaucrats and their passion for secrecy. Surely the Daily Telegraph is in completely in favour of the F.o.I. Act?
Anyway, have a look at the Guardian's article where the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, is reported as giving his view on the "distinguished Whitehall insiders" who are unhappy with the Freedom of Information Act.
It seems to me that, most of the time, it is perfectly clear and perfectly understandable which information can and can't be shared with the world. As you know, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis is remembered for welcoming the publicity of sunlight. He is also celebrated for writing classic legal opinions on freedom of speech and the right to privacy.
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surprised to find you of all people lining-up on the side of the bureaucrats
No! It ought to be clear from my post further above that I'm in favour of more access to information. I have been much frustrated with its lack or absence.
My mention of Sir Gus O'Donnell was in a spirit of informing the debate, and merely to note that there is another side; to note there is opposition to greater openness. I don't subscribe to Sir Gus's views; I mentioned them to see what others might make of them.
I don't know what the DT's views on the Act are; but I imagine that, like most newspapers, they would favour more access to information. I think all media use the FoI Act.
It seems to me that, most of the time, it is perfectly clear and perfectly understandable which information can and can't be shared with the world.
Agree!
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>>the bureaucratic mindset
Hit the nail on the head as usual, Alan, albeit with a mallet
The greatest level of leaks since records began means that, effectively, there are fewer important secrets (as far as we know!) globally (Wikileaks) and nationally (MP's expenses).
I'm surprised that, with so many underpaid working people employed by a Council forced to wield the mallet of cuts, there aren't more direct leaks. Councils need to circulate many emails and documents to numerous other bodies as part of their due diligence, so the number of people who could leak easily is greater than ever.
All LBH emails and documents created on LBH computers are held on Haringey's computer servers and, I guess, fully backed up with at least one remote copy of the entire database at a distant location (in case the buildings burn).
I presume there is a system of classification (do you know Alan?) for those marked 'exempt' (='secret'). Every single email and document is considered private by Haringey, in some cases even if they've published them on their website. This is common practice too I imagine.
With the practice of deleting emails more frowned upon than ever, it's possible that Haringey are archiving them instead - the cost is trivial. As far as I understand, most 'old' emails and documents are deleted from these servers (maybe not from the archive copy, which could easily prove irretrievable in case of need) after a certain period. This is a real shame given the very low costs of storing immense amounts of text. In the past, paper documents were regularly destroyed by all Councils as a matter of course - the storage costs were too great.
Nowadays there is an opportunity to preserve every keystroke. For history's sake alone, this would make the data serve twice - if we could easily look back in detail at Council business, we could help improve standards and best practice, gain a range of social and historical benefits, generally reduce the danger ignorance presents and even maybe help create jobs - mining the data commercially. Many of us have the expertise to add every single permitted document and email into a 'live' synchronised, searchable database on this website - the Computer industry grew up on databases; it's a well-trodden path and doesn't have to cost anything, given the right LBH attitude. LBH wants live, synchronised access to some things, why not more?
So, maybe helping Haringey leverage this asset to all our benefit starts by a public examination of what the reality is today?
I notice with dismay, for instance, that some reports that must have been wordprocessed internally end up as scanned copies on the LBH website. What a waste of Haringey resources to have to spend time and money doing printing stuff out to scan them back in. Scanned documents are also harder to index, so it prevents those published on the LBH website from being located when residents search, arguably denying us access.
Bruce Castle Museum holds some archives of council proceedings stretching back a long way, but they have no effective means of handling it's modern data-based format. So they have to print stuff out and keep it on shelves in boxes.
There is no online historical search at Bruce Castle Musuem and they have a tiny budget so are necessarily extremely selective in what they preserve in any case. A searchable database (with maybe a modest charge to non-Council-Tax payers) could be the start of an income stream that might alone justify brighter illumination on what is done in our name.
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What a waste of Haringey resources to have to spend time and money doing printing stuff out to scan them back in. Scanned documents are also harder to index, so it prevents those published on the LBH website from being located when residents search, arguably denying us access
Yes, the scanning of paper print outs is inefficient from all viewpoints.
I know that Alan is an honourable opponent of this waste and an advocate, as am I, of direct PDF production instead.
The voluminous production of paper is deeply ingrained in bureaucrats!
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