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Ben’s World: If our taxes pay for it then we deserve to know
THERE is a story in this week’s T&C about how many officers at Beds Police have got into hot water for racist behaviour.
Also in the T&C, at the end of last year, we had a story about the number of children of all ages who had been excluded from schools across our area.
Or if you want to go way back, we revealed six years ago that the old county council paid £6.75million to get out of a ten-year contract with a private firm that supplied the authority with computers, IT support, financial advice and host of other services.
The council didn’t want to supply that information at first - but after some appropriate arm-twisting and asking the right questions of the right people, we got there.
What do all these stories have in common? Well they were all fantastically well-written reports about matters that cut to the heart of what a local newspaper should be about.
But they are also stories that only came to light thanks to the Freedom Of Information (FOI) Act.
And that act is going to come under attack from tomorrow.
> Very simply, the FOI Act lets anybody ask anything of any public organisation.
We pay them - so why shouldn’t we know what they’re doing?
There are a few limitations to the act. You have to ask your question fairly tightly - if you ask “How many of your staff are men and women?” you are likely to be told “All of them.”
If you ask “Do you have any incriminating documents that we don’t know about?” they might ask you to be just a little more specific.
But it’s got pretty good balance in my experience. It helps people to find out what their money - that’s your taxes, and mine - gets spent on.
And don’t imagine that it’s only for journalists.
60 per cent of FOI queries every year (that’s around 72,000) are made my ordinary members of the public.
> So far, so good. Except that on Friday MPs are set to begin an investigation into how the act is working.
You can usually get an idea of how the wind is blowing before anything like this actually begins.
And sure enough, a memorandum by the Ministry Of Justice raises issues such as the increasing number of FOI requests, the cost of them to public authorities, and the impact of FOIs on public bodies that have commercial interests.
Or, in other words: Too many people are taking an interest in what is going on at taxpayers’ expense, and they even want to know if councils are not being run profitably.
So keep an eye on this one. Remember - councils, MPs, governments, they all work for you. That’s why we all need them to be open about what they’re doing at our expense.
> The best nights out - it hardly needs saying - are the ones that you don’t plan at all.
Which is why “a few drinks” last Wednesday turned into several more drinks, being serenaded by an Elvis impersonator in Tavistock Street, whispering to a girl “That’s Barry Fry,” (before explaining just who Barry Fry is), and then a free curry.
It was so good that I’m planning the same again this Wednesday - which will be last night by the time you read this.
This time it will be planned a little of course - but I’ll also be trying Saffron’s new chocolate curry.
Wish me luck - or stay tuned to my Twitter @therazinho when I’ll tell you how I got on!
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Weather for Bedford
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 12 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North east
