Scottish Government ministers are facing a parliamentary challenge over their refusal to extend Freedom of Information provisions to contractors and arm’s-length agencies.
Green MSP Alison Johnstone has tabled an FoI amendment to a motion on the planned outsourcing of support services for Trident nuclear submarines on the Clyde. Her addition to Scottish National Party member Bill Kidd’s motion points out that the use of private contractors puts such publicly funded contracts beyond the reach of FoI.Johnstone claimed that Scottish ministers, who have tabled a Bill to amend the scope of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, have grown ‘too close to big business’.
She said: ‘The Scottish National Party’s proposed changes to the FoI Act fail to include private firms and arm’s-length bodies receiving serious amounts of public cash in return for delivering public contracts and services.’
FoI campaigners have accused the SNP government of letting Scotland fall behind the position of the UK, where ministers are extending designation to some professional bodies, agencies and the Financial Ombudsman service, and consulting on much wider application.
Scottish campaigners want the reach of FoI extended to include housing associations, local government professional bodies, senior police officers’ associations and the Scottish Law Society. This was endorsed earlier this year by Scotland’s first Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion, in an interview with Public Finance.
Instead, the Scottish Government’s Bill, introduced in May and currently under consultation, focuses on tightening up existing procedures and excluding royal matters from the scope of FoI.
Johnstone, whose amendment could be debated when Parliament returns from recess on September 2, added: ‘During a previous consultation private companies who would have been subject to scrutiny unsurprisingly said they'd rather not be covered by FoI and SNP ministers kowtowed.
‘I'd like to see MSPs from all parties properly tackle this issue, as our constituents' ability to know what is done in their name is slowly being eroded. I'm hopeful that when the [Holyrood] Finance Committee looks into the proposed Bill it will realise that extending FoI is a positive step and a perfectly reasonable one.’
