Good transparency cop, bad transparency cop
at 4:44pm on Friday, 12th January 2007
At the risk of becoming a bit of a one trick blog pony, I picked up today on yet more government information developments. This is the exciting news that the Statute Law Database - a sort of bank of UK legislation - is avaliable free online. Pretty good news - we can get easy access to which laws say what. Credit to those involved for making it free and so easy.
The BBC online coverage includes a quote from Jim Wretham, head of Information Policy at the Office of Public Sector Information. He identifies 'a sea-change in the general thinking about the way government information becomes available'.
I'm pretty sceptical about generalising about the government's approach to information at the moment. This achievement marks the end of particular battles about costs and remuneration for the provision of this government service.
But for an indicator of the way other kinds of government information become available - or don't - , we might want to look again at the proposed changes to the Freedom of Information Act. That tells a different story about the willingness of government to share its information. The Campaign for Freedom of Information has a great page tracking this story.
The FOI Act isn't just about public access to the outputs of government. The achievement here is about getting easy access online, not a debate about whether we should have access.
Transparency is about so much more than a virtual guided tour of government business. It's about trust; the gap between Westminster and the people it serves; the ability of people to organise politically and socially in 'formal' and 'informal' ways...just about any factor and measure of a healthy democratic system. The government used to demostrably think so too, apparently now less so having noticed that such progressive standards in their relationship with the public could be a bit of a 'nuisance'...
I can't really understand why in an article about government information, the BBC hasn't picked up on this contradiction. Journalists in particular should be wary of what's going on.
We're about to embark on a lot of research on the sharing of information. You can email me if you have any thoughts.
At the risk of becoming a bit of a one trick blog pony, I picked up today on yet more government information developments. This is the exciting news that the Statute Law Database - a sort of bank of UK legislation - is avaliable free online. Pretty good news - we can get easy access to which laws say what. Credit to those involved for making it free and so easy.
The BBC online coverage includes a quote from Jim Wretham, head of Information Policy at the Office of Public Sector Information. He identifies 'a sea-change in the general thinking about the way government information becomes available'.
I'm pretty sceptical about generalising about the government's approach to information at the moment. This achievement marks the end of particular battles about costs and remuneration for the provision of this government service.
But for an indicator of the way other kinds of government information become available - or don't - , we might want to look again at the proposed changes to the Freedom of Information Act. That tells a different story about the willingness of government to share its information. The Campaign for Freedom of Information has a great page tracking this story.
The FOI Act isn't just about public access to the outputs of government. The achievement here is about getting easy access online, not a debate about whether we should have access.
Transparency is about so much more than a virtual guided tour of government business. It's about trust; the gap between Westminster and the people it serves; the ability of people to organise politically and socially in 'formal' and 'informal' ways...just about any factor and measure of a healthy democratic system. The government used to demostrably think so too, apparently now less so having noticed that such progressive standards in their relationship with the public could be a bit of a 'nuisance'...
I can't really understand why in an article about government information, the BBC hasn't picked up on this contradiction. Journalists in particular should be wary of what's going on.
We're about to embark on a lot of research on the sharing of information. You can email me if you have any thoughts.
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