I have recently delved into the world of the Freedom of Information Act. Under the act the people of this country have the right to request the release of information held by public bodies. It’s all about transparency. For apparently obvious reasons, the government added in a number of safeguards, under which public departments could withhold information in certain situations. Unfortunately the Department for Children, Schools and Families for one appears to simply use these rules as a filter for its disinformation campaigns.
The recently released Badman review of home education makes a number of claims which don’t appear to be substantiated within the report. As such a number of home educators have made FOI requests to have the data used to draw some of Badman’s conclusions released. In addition various other elements of the review have been under scrutiny so other requests have been made for information related to the review.
One would hope that in such a situation DCSF would release all of the information asked of it, in order to show they have nothing to hide about the review, and its recommendations are based on a solid base of research and consultation. You can probably guess that they aren’t quite taking that approach.
Firstly lots of responses to the review have been requested, particularly those from local authorities. As far as I can tell these have all been refused “because the information relates to the formulation and development of government policy” – an exemption under S35(1)(a) of the act. Its an interesting exemption which appears to give them the ability to formulate and develop government policy based on spurious and ill-founded responses from other sections of government, with no ability for people to see if that is the case. This exemption was also used to withhold all correspondence between Graham Badman and the DCSF. So we can see the public terms of reference for the review, but not any extra requests made…
The departments responses most recently have taken a bizarre turn. Responses like this are now commonplace: “The Department is aware that attempts are being made on the Internet to vilify and harass the author of the review, and others who have participated, in ways which clearly go beyond the bounds of reasonable criticism and debate. It is the Department’s view that, whilst dealing with each request on its merits, this situation will have to be taken into account in dealing with any relevant FOI requests. We therefore consider that section 38 is engaged in respect of your request. The Department is not suggesting that you have participated, or are participating, in such a campaign. As far as we are concerned you are a bona fide requester under the Act and we have treated your request accordingly. It is unfortunate that the activities of a minority of people on the Internet have caused us to engage section 38.”
Now, I have every sympathy for someone whose health is genuinely being put at risk, and I think the FOI having an exemption allowing refusal on such grounds is sensible. But let’s take a look at this case:
1. Where is this claimed campaign of “vilification”? Search the Internet, see what you find. If you turn up anything which threatens Graham Badman’s health please do let me know. I’ll post a correction and even send him a get well soon card.
2. What is vilification? And when does it impact on someone’s mental health? Does my little jibe in point 1 count? Clearly lots of people criticising someone can have an impact on their mental health does this mean all criticism is outlawed? The report’s author was (presumably) paid by government, he was commissioned by government, he accepted a status as an “expert” bestowed by government, he saw fit to personally make a series of recommendations including that government should legislate to clamp down on home education. I’m sorry, but if he didn’t expect robust criticism, satire, and expressions of anger then….
3. How will the information being withheld make this health-destroying vilification worse? The quote above comes from this FOI request. What was it asking for? The cost of the review.
My personal view is that the DCSF is hiding behind these exemptions to cover up its own disinformation campaign designed to discredit home education. In the absence of factual information they have used supposition, rumour and such extreme manipulation of numerical information you can’t even call it statistics. Then when we ask to see that information they hide as much of it as possible from us, using their very own Freedom of Disinformation exemptions.
P.S. At the time of writing the DCSF have failed to respond to one of my Freedom of Information requests within 20 days. This is a breach of the law. A routine one though, it happens in in excess of 1 in 10 cases. I’m not holding my breath.