Obviously the council have to be able to
keep some documents secret for some period of time. I think there can be no
doubt about this, but I will spell it out for those who don’t understand.
Let us for instance say that I want to rent
a council owned premises, well the council are going to want my bank details,
personal contact details and so on and I don’t want them handing them out to
anyone.
When MP’s expenses first came into the
public domain, part of the information like their bank account numbers was blacked
out (this process is called redacting and obviously has to be done in some
cases) I guess there will always be some people who feel that nothing should be
kept secret but I am not one of them.
This process of redaction does allow many
documents to be published that would otherwise need to be kept secret, it is
for instance important for the public to know when an MP has spent public money
on buying himself a large screen TV but it is just as important not to put his
credit card number online when publishing the recipt.
There are also those documents that the
council consider to be commercially sensitive, this moves us into the realms of
the council negotiating with businesses and individuals and keeping secret
information that would give the commercial advantage to one over the other.
Another aspect of secret documents and the
need to keep them secret is how old the documents are and this even applies to
the most secret of documents, those where national security would be compromised.
Eventually even these cease to be a threat to security and just become of historic
interest.
The final aspect here is the one of common
sense, there is no point in the council spending money on protecting
information that has already leaked out.
Having got some sort of system for keeping
some documents secret or secret for a given period of time, we then come to the
problem of misusing this secrecy to cover up mistakes by officers and members
of the council.
Over the last twenty years since Jimmy
Godden started negotiations to run down the amusements on Ramsgate seafront and
attempt to acquire the freehold for a knockdown price, the largest single
problem has been the unnecessary secrecy used by Thanet District Council to
cover up their shortcomings in this fiasco.
This unnecessary secrecy was first mentioned
and documented by the district auditor in 2002, so serious were the council’s
blunders relating to the Pleasurama fiasco at that time that there is a good chance
that the lead to the departure of the chief executive.
Now frankly the documents that Cllr Driver said
he was going to publish on his blog and lead to his blog post saying he was
going to be censured by the chief executive, can be summed up as providing
evidence for continuing with the Pleasurama fiasco that wouldn’t have convinced
Big Ears to lend anyone his bicycle, let alone a council to go ahead with a
£22m development.
So when I saw his blog post and received the
press release, I contacted the chief executive, here is the email.
Sent: 21 February 2013 22:10
To: Sue McGonigal;
Subject: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Hi Sue, I am contacting you about the business
of stopping Cllr Driver from receiving council pinks.
“Dear Cllr Driver,
I have asked that a meeting be arranged to
discuss the issuing of papers to you, as a result of your recent breach in
respect of the publication of pink papers. I will not be in a position to
provide you with any of the requested documents until after this meeting.
Should you require any clarification of my ability to refuse these documents to
you in your role as Chairman of OSP, please contact Harvey who will be able to
help.”
The document in question has been to a greater
or lesser extent in the public domain since 2009, as far as I can see from what
Cllr Driver did he was obviously sent the pink paper version.
I am attaching the pdf version of this document
to prove my point i.e. a copy of the document that I assume Cllr Driver didn’t
receive.
I am also pointing out to you that I have
discussed the contents of this document on several occasions with Harvey prior to Cllr
Diver being elected a councillor, so presumably he must have been aware I had a
copy of it.
I also discussed the contents of the document
with you recently by email, although I am uncertain if I discussed it with you
or your predecessor, prior to Cllr Driver becoming a councillor.
Obviously I can see some point in censoring Cllr
Driver from releasing sensitive council documents that are in fact secret,
however doing this over a document that has leaked out of the council some
years ago and is known by both you and Harvey
to have leaked out would seem to be somewhat ridiculous.
Obviously the council putting some sort of
gagging order on the council’s chair of scrutiny is something that I can hardly
avoid writing a blog post about, which I will do tomorrow.
Please consider this as an open letter, which
will be published as part of that post hopefully with your reply.
Best regards Michael
Having phoned the council to ask if anyone wanted to discuss this issue
before I posted about it and being told they didn’t. I received the following
reply from Sue.
Dear Michael,
I am aware that you have been chasing for a reply to this, however I
have had other business to attend to.
I am not prepared to discuss the whys and wherefores of the
Council’s Code of Conduct that requires confidentiality to be observed for pink
papers, in order to ensure the Council remains legally compliant and free from
legal challenge, however I felt I must point out that in the context of what
you have written below (above), you have been incorrectly advised, as the
extract of the email that I sent to Councillor Driver was not in relation to
the pink paper that he published.
Regards,
Dr Sue McGonigal
Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer
Thanet District Council
I then phoned them back as I couldn’t understand from the email if
she or some other officer wanted to discuss the issue further, no one wanted to
discuss the issue with me but they said I may get a more comprehensive reply. and
that is the situation now.
I am very busy with work today and haven't even had a chance to read this one through I will sort out any glaring errors and add anything I can think of later.
As I said before I
can’t just leave this one, I will try phoning the council again and see
if anyone is prepared to talk to me about it, otherwise it’s my best
guess.
Best regards Michael
From: Sue McGonigal
To: '
michaelchild@aol.com' <
michaelchild@aol.com>
CC: cllr-Clive Hart
Sent: Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:53
Subject: RE: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Michael,
I am
not in the office today and so was not available to take your call which
Annette picked up. I was surprised that you felt my reply was not
complete, as
I’m not sure what other information you had asked for.
However,
I can confirm that the council does not have a gagging order on anyone,
it does however have a code of conduct that requires all councillors to
observe
confidentiality of commercially sensitive and other data protected
information. The main concern is ensuring that confidentiality is
maintained, especially at the point that the information is issued.
Often, with the passing of time, the information can become
less sensitive, and can be openly shared. We would review the position
whenever we get an FOI request on an issue, even if at some point it had
been contained within a pink paper. Hence why Harvey no doubt was not
troubled on learning that you had a copy of
the 2009 paper.
As I
explained before, the meeting that I have with Cllr Driver and the
content of the email that the extract is from does not relate to the
pink paper that
he published, and Cllr Driver is aware of this, as he knows what it was
said in response to.
Regards,
Dr Sue McGonigal
Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer
Thanet District Council
To: Sue McGonigal
Subject: Re: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Hi Sue, difficult for me, on the one hand I have Cllr Driver saying
that you are issuing a gagging order and on the other hand you saying that you
are censuring for some other purpose, which appears to relate to his leaking council
documents that I can find no trace of him leaking.
With the specific 2009 document, you imply that it is no longer restricted;
does this mean that I can publish it in its entirety on the internet? If not
are you happy for me to publish a redacted version with phone numbers and
emails removed?
With other Pleasurama documents held by the council, can I presume
that the same applies to all of the pre 2009 ones?
Does the council have some guidelines on the release of the older restricted
documents it holds? I ask this as a local historian as much as a local blog
writer.
Best regards Michael
As far as I am aware Cllr Driver has not leaked any other documents, but again, I can confirm that the pink report that he has published on his web is not the purpose of the meeting.
I will have to ask Harvey to advise on the publication of the 2009 document and others, as he will need to assess what information is able to be made public, and what needs redacting. He will also be able to advise on process. I will ask him to come back to you directly next week.
Sue
I couldn’t draw any other inference from “have asked that a meeting be arranged to discuss the issuing of papers to you, as a result of your recent breach in respect of the publication of pink papers.” Unless you mean he misquoted you rather than quoting you out of context.
Obviously this is a serious issue as Cllr Driver both holds the post of Chair of Scrutiny and appears top be saying that the council are withholding documents against the public interest.
Personally I am inclined to view the whole saga of trying to acquire the freehold from 1994 to date as one entity and until the names behind the offshore company come into the public domain I see no reason to do otherwise.
Particularly in view of the 2009 document being based on the council dealing with the offshore company, several years after assuring me that they were now dealing with a UK company.
Many thanks for your help over trying to get the rest of the documentation released, I look forward to hearing from Harvey, it would be helpful if were to send me the documents that I can publish as some of the ones I have may be incomplete and don’t say if they are restricted or not.
Best regards Michael
Hi Michael,
I’m not able to add anything further at this stage.
However, as far as your comment from the District Auditors’ recommendations – I agree, and the council currently works to the presumption that there will be full disclosure, unless our legal team or external lawyers advise against it. I will reiterate what I said in my earlier email, the council does not have a gagging order on anyone, it does however have a code of conduct that requires all councillors to observe confidentiality of commercially sensitive and other data protected information.
Regards,
Dr Sue McGonigal
Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer
Thanet District Council
Hi Sue, gagging order was Cllr Diver’s phrase not mine, it does occur to me though that the withholding information about Pleasurama, until after the decisions have been made, seems to have been a factor in the council now facing the risk of considerable liability if the try to regain control of the site.
There doesn’t seem to be any reason why a redacted version didn’t go into the public domain, particularly with such a large project on TDC owned land.
I sincerely hope that you will look at the documentation relating to the current concessions and consider which parts of can be published, public interest is considerable and I haven’t had any satisfactory reason as to why a FRA wasn’t sought as part of the recent bargaining process.
Best regards Michael
Incidentally here is the link fro live tweets from the council meeting https://twitter.com/GazetteMargate 
