´óÏó´«Ã½

There were 65 people who for 2004/05 filed a tax return declaring a taxable income of over £10 million. This information has just been given to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ by HM Revenue and Customs, in response to a freedom of information request.

However, in the Sunday Times Rich List for 2005 there were 65 entries with a wealth of at least £700 million, while 250 entries had at least £200 million and 500 had £100 million. So these people may be super-rich but they're not very good at generating income and converting their wealth into even more money, are they? Or am I missing something?

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On Friday the High Court that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ does not have to make public the 'Balen Report', an internal report about the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Middle East coverage which was written in 2004.

Some of the comment about this has been a little misleading, so it's worthwhile being clear about what the judge, Mr Justice Davis, decided.

The background is that the Freedom of Information Act only 'in respect of information held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature'. This is called the derogation.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ position is that the Balen report is held for purposes of journalism, and so is not covered by FOI. One of those who disagrees and would like to read it is Steven Sugar. He appealed to the Information Commissioner who backed the ´óÏó´«Ã½. Mr Sugar then took the case to the Information Tribunal, which disagreed with the Commissioner and said Mr Sugar was entitled to see the report.

The first part of Mr Justice Davis's ruling is that the Tribunal should not have said this, because it does not have the legal power to overturn the Commissioner where the Commissioner has agreed with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ that information requested is held for journalistic purposes and is thus not within the scope of the FOI Act.

Note that this does not affect the Trbunal's ability to overrule the Commissioner on most issues, just on whether information comes under the derogations which apply to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and a few other public bodies. This is because when the Commissioner upholds a derogation, it is not a formal 'decision notice' within the meaning of the FOI Act.

Mr Justice Davis clearly was not entirely happy coming to this conclusion, describing the necessary interpretation of the law as 'inconvenient', but he was persuaded that the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s legal submissions that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear such an appeal were 'well-founded'.

So what legal recourse is open to someone like Mr Sugar who objects to what the Commissioner has done in a case like this? The answer is to seek judicial review of the Commissioner's actions (a more ambitious task than appealing a case to the Tribunal).

In the second part of his judgment Mr Justice Davis considered and then rejected Mr Sugar's application for judicial review, finding that the Commissioner's approach when he backed the ´óÏó´«Ã½ was lawful and rational.

So the High Court ruling concerns legal processes rather than a detailed assessment of the contents of the report.

In fact, Mr Justice Davis says in his that, although the ´óÏó´«Ã½ offered it to him, he himself did not actually read the Balen Report. Nobody asked him to read it, and he clearly didn't think it was necessary in order to decide on the matters before him.

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The was not discussed in the House of Commons today, but has been postponed until 18 May. At this stage it is far from clear whether it will actually be discussed then either, since that depends on the progress made by other Bills which could take priority according to the rules for allocating debating time.

As I've discussed before, the practical effects of the Bill would be (a) to keep secret all correspondence between MPs and public authorities (letters about the personal circumstances of constituents are already protected from disclosure under the Data Protection Act), and (b) to stop further details being released of how MPs spend their allowances.

So what further information about MPs' expenses might come out if the Bill doesn't go ahead? Numerous requests for additional details are currently working their way through the FOI process, awaiting decision by the Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal.

The Commissioner's Office divided the appeals it has received about MPs expenses on travel, subsistence, accommodation, office supplies, etc into three tranches.

The first involved those seeking the breakdown of travel expenses per MP according to mode of transport. This has been decided. The Commons was forced to reveal this breakdown earlier this year following decisions by first the Commissioner and then on appeal the Tribunal that it should be made public.

The second tranche comprises requests for the travel expenses of certain named MPs and, in one case, the spouse of one of those MPs. Again the Commissioner ordered disclosure. Again the House of Commons has appealed to the Tribunal, which recently fixed a hearing date of 20 June.

The third tranche are those regarded by the Information Commissioner's Office as more complex in terms of the nature of the information requested and the extent to which disclosure of that information would impact on the private lives of the MPs and their families. The ICO has yet to decide on these, and so we do not yet know whether under existing law the Commons might be forced to reveal this kind of information anyway.

In at least one of these cases the Commissioner's Office sent a draft Preliminary Decision Notice to the Commons authorities last year, which prompted further arguments from them. These additional representations were one factor which has made the ICO re-consider its preliminary approach on these cases, and that consideration still continues.

Unless the Commissioner decides to wait for the outcome of the Tribunal case on the second tranche, a decision on the third tranche is possible by the end of next month - although probably not by May 18.

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The Constitution Unit at University College, London, is running a pilot survey for FOI requesters for its project to assess the impact of freedom of information.

If you have made an FOI request to central government and would like to help them test out their survey, you can do so .

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Does dealing with freedom of information requests take up a lot of ministerial time?

Well, not in the case of the FOI minister herself, Baroness (Cathy) Ashton, who told the yesterday that in over two years since FOI came into force, she reckoned that the amount of time she had spent on considering FOI requests was about fifteen minutes.

Other interesting points from her evidence were:

• She divided the 230 responses to the government's previous consultation into three categories - (1) those completely opposed to the government's plans, (2) those who had concerns about how they could lead to additional bureaucracy or excuses to evade FOI requests, and (3) those who thought the government was heading in the right direction. She revealed that the third category was the smallest of the three.

• She informed the committee that the Department for Constitutional Affairs was in discussion with the National Archives on how best to preserve governmental FOI disclosures for posterity.

• She placed much stress on promoting co-operation between requesters and public authorities, and how this could help solve problems over time-consuming but legitimate requests.

Meanwhile the past few days have seen much uncertainty over whether the Bill to exempt MPs from FOI will get another chance to pass through the Commons this Friday, but at time of writing it seems more likely that MPs will instead be devoting their time then to debating the regulation of lending by building societies.

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More than one in five newspaper stories which arise from journalists using FOI are about costs and expenses.

This was the most popular kind of newspaper FOI-based story in 2005, according to a study published today by the at University College, London.

A similar proportion covered Institutional rules, procedures and policies. The other common theme for front-page stories was performance statistics or data.

This reflects the sort of public sector information which has been most easily available under FOI, because it is difficult to argue that the balance of the public interest is against its disclosure.

So one result has been more stories about numbers - not always the kind of stories which traditionally have been handled well by numerically-challenged journalists.

Will this early pattern continue? That depends on how FOI is allowed to develop, by government, the Information Commissioner and the courts, and particularly on the extent of access it will be allowed to provide to discussion about public policy.

The study about journalists' use of freedom of information is reported in the latest issue of the .

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The Bill to exempt MPs from the Freedom of Information Act was effectively defeated today in the House of Commons by a few determined opponents MPs who fililbustered the debate - but also, it should be said, by a lack of enthusiasm among MPs at large for this measure.

If the Bill's supporters had been able to mobilise 100 MPs to back the measure, then they could have forced closure of the debate and got the Bill through the Commons despite the filibustering.

That would certainly have been an ambitious target on a Friday during the campaign for the Scottish, Welsh and local elections. But they only managed about half that number. Which suggests that most MPs on the whole are happy with the way the Act applies to them, or at least do not feel so strongly about any concerns that they would devote a Friday - and risk embarrassing publicity - to get it changed.

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The Police are at the sharp end - in terms of freedom of information as with much else. They receive many FOI requests and clearly have many genuine secrets which merit protection - but it's fair to say that on the whole (although some forces are notable exceptions) they have an efficient and helpful record on dealing with FOI requests compared to many other public authorities. (Which is not the same as saying that they always give you the information you want or may be entitled to).

As with other public services, there are internal tensions between the traditions of secrecy and the pressures for openness.

The Police response to FOI is coordinated by the Association of Chief Police Officers, who have a Central Referral Unit (CRU) based in Hampshire. This from the CRU's Chief Inspector James Fulton shows the sort of information the Police tend to think should or should not be disclosed in the public interest.

Information they seek to provide, he says, includes: 'How we spend public funds; strategic reasons for Police actions; issues that impact on the community; peformance statistics, good or bad; information surrounding integrity.'

They don't like releasing information about investigations, informants, tactics, national security and VIP protection.

If you want to see the sort of information that a force has released in practice, there's an extensive on the Avon and Somerset Police website.

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The latest set of government statistics on freedom of information show the huge gap between the performance of central government on delays to FOI requests compared to the standards demanded by the Information Commissioner.

According to the , in 2006 there were at least 749 cases where government departments or other central government bodies gave themselves an extension of more than 20 working days for the time taken for assessing the public interest on disclosing requested information (Table 7). This means taking more than 40 working days overall.

Yet the on time limits for assessing the public interest test, issued in February, states: 'Our view is that public authorities should aim to respond fully to all requests within 20 working days. In cases where the public interest considerations are exceptionally complex it may be reasonable to take longer but, in our view, in no case should the total time exceed 40 working days.'

Of course the Information Commissioner's position would carry more moral force if his own office didn't suffer from enormous backlogs and delays.

The 2006 numbers also show (Table 5) that in 23 per cent of internal reviews of a decision to withhold information from an FOI requester, that withholding is partly or entirely overturned. There are two ways of looking at this. One is that badly informed or over-cautious junior officials are unnecessarily turning down FOI requests at the initial stage. The other is that the internal review process is working well as a fair re-examination of the initial decision, sometimes reaching different judgments on matters on which reasonable people might disagree. And there's a third way - which is that elements of both are true. In my view the third way has it. But whatever the explanation it does suggest that it is worth asking for an internal review if the reasons supplied for initially turning down an FOI request appear inadequate.

In overall terms the quarterly statistics indicate that the level of FOI requests to central government and the other bodies monitored by the Department for Constitutional Affairs seems to be fairly stable at around 8,000 per quarter.

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We may soon know which world leaders Tony Blair's been sending Christmas cards to.

Last month the Information Commissioner that, while Downing Street can keep secret the identity of other recipients of Prime Ministerial Christmas cards, the balance of the public interest favours revealing which international leaders have been getting them.

But is this just trivial stuff? Some people might think so. However, clearly not Downing St itself. Its arguments for keeping the list secret refer to 'private disagreements or tensions with a particular country which meant that a Christmas card was not sent from the Prime Minister'. The PM's office doesn't want cases like this to escalate into being a public snub.

In other words Christmas cards are used as a diplomatic weapon, or as Downing St puts it, as a 'means of building and maintaining relationships'. Which suggests that disclosure of the list could tell us something about Britain's international relations that we didn't know before.

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How can you get foreigners to do what you want them to do?

That would certainly be a valuable skill for a government minister - and earlier this year ministers attended a presentation in Downing St which included some useful advice on the matter.

This was at a seminar on 'Behavioural Change', organised by the Cabinet Office as part of Tony Blair's recent . The presentation was from the American academic , a noted authority on the psychology of persuasion.

Dr Cialdini's guidance included a section on influencing across cultures. According to his presentation, different principles govern how people in different countries respond to someone who requests something from them, as follows:

• In the US, UK, and Canada: 'What has this requester done for me recently?'

• In the Far East (eg China, Hong Kong, Singapore): 'Is this requester connected to a member of my small group, especially someone of high rank?'

• In the Mediterranean countries (eg Spain, Italy, Greece): 'Is this requester connected to one of my friends?'

• In Germany and the Scandinavian countries: 'According to official rules and categories, am I supposed to help this requester?'

This is taken from a copy of his presentation, which the Cabinet Office provided to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ in response to our freedom of information request for it. I can't show you the actual slides, due to copyright restrictions imposed by Dr Cialdini. But if you want to know more you can read an article by him on page 76 of . It turns out it's all based on a study of Citibank employees and their willingness to co-operate with requests from colleagues.

By the way Cialdini's book Influence is well worth reading in my view - one of its key merits indeed being that it is fully sourced, in contrast to numerous business or pop psychology works on similar subject-matter.

According to his website, 'In the field of influence and persuasion, Dr Cialdini is the most cited social psychologist in the world today'. If you're impressed by that, it's only because it's an example of what he himself would call 'social proof'. As he told ministers, 'People are likely to follow the lead of multiple, comparable others'. Looks like I fell for it.

But anyway we may now see whether Cialdini's advice has much impact on British diplomacy. Unfortunately he didn't seem to have anything to say on the social norms affecting principles of influence in Iran (but then Citibank's not big in Tehran).

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Update on item below:

The Department of Health has today released the report on the NHS University in the case which it had previously intended to fight at the Information Tribunal. Accorging to the requester, , the report suggests 'the Department of Health is exposed to significant embarrassment if the value for money delivered by the NHSU were to be probed'.

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A catch-up on some freedom of information developments that are worth noting:

• Following the Treasury 1997 budget papers disclosure, the government has decided to give in on it had initially decided to fight at the Information Tribunal. Isolated instances? Or a pattern in which government lawyers are advising that further resistance on these cases are futile?

• The conflict between individual privacy and freedom of information produces some of the most complex legal disputes around FOI. is a useful summary of recent decisions, prepared by the information lawyer Ibrahim Hasan. This conflict between privacy and openness features in all countries with a freedom of information law, but the issues vary according to local custom and ethos. In the US, there's over whether to make public a list of names and addresses of residents allowed to carry concealed handguns.

• The Information Commissioner has published important guidance on the time public authorities should take to and also on the time they should take take to . These documents state that both public interest tests and internal reviews should be completed within 20 working days.

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When I started this blog last May I hoped it might become a site of interest for those curious about open government, journalistic methods, and so on.

I have no idea whether this is now true, but it does seem to have become a popular location for people having problems with their gas meters.

In fact, it seems that this blog is now even sometimes rated (according to Google, of course) the leading authority in the British-wide web on the subject of dodgy gas meters - a subject about which I know next to nothing.

One of my early posts was about gas meters, inspired by a decision from the Information Commissioner that some data about meter reliability should remain secret as this was insisted on by the manufacturers.

Now various people have posted comments there on their gas meter misery. And if you type 'gas meter' into Google UK, this page comes up in the top three and sometimes number one.

Sadly however I am not remotely qualified to advise anyone who feels their bills are suffering from an inaccurate meter.

So, Dear Googleplex, there is no need to send my way in future those unlucky people with gas meter problems. Please can I swop my 'gas meter' spot for a top three position on 'freedom of information' searches ???

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Update on entry below.

The Department for Work and Pensions released yesterday, reported .

And it turns out that the Department for Education and Skills had already released the minutes of school budget meetings to the Evening Standard. It has now put the on its disclosure log today.

So this discussion of government policy formulation is now in the open.

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Is the major political row over the release of civil service advice to Gordon Brown on dividend tax credits the first of many such stories in which the publication under FOI of official advice will embarrass ministers?

Well, it probably won't be unique - but on the other hand this case does have some unusual features and may not often be replicated.

The new policy on dividend taxation in the 1997 budget was part of a complex interlocking set of changes to corporation tax. At the time the mechanics of these reforms - and their implications for pension funds - was grasped by few members of the general public and not many journalists either. The 'hullaballoo' expected by the Treasury largely failed to materialise. That's why this move became regarded as the emblematic 'stealth tax'.

The documents do show that Treasury officials had a better understanding of what was going on than most of the rest of us, which perhaps is as things should be. It's the fact that they made clear there was a downside as well as an upside to the change which has stoked the current fuss.

But most government decisions aren't quite like that. Mainly it's clear that policy options have an upside and a downside, and it's up to ministers to decide which of the factors on either side should sway the balance. The mere existence of official advice pointing out risks in a policy is unlikely to have so much impact in many other cases.

(Of course if these documents had been published at the time then the rest of us would have had a better chance of understanding the pros and cons of the 1997 budget than we then managed).

Another question: what is the pattern of incentives that civil servants will now face when writing advice for ministers? If freedom of information now means that they will sometimes write with a view as to how their work will be assessed by posterity and not just by their current political masters, does this give them an extra incentive to ensure they have set out fully the risks involved in ministerial intentions? In other words, could FOI mean that official advice will become freer and franker and therefore perhaps better (or should that be even better)?

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Freedom of information is beginning to bite, and hard.

That's clear from the that Gordon Brown is now facing over the on changes to dividend tax relief in 1997.

As I wrote last month, recent decisions by the Information Tribunal mean that the spotlight of FOI is moving closer to heart of goverment. It is now shining into what for central goverment is one of the most sensitive areas, the process of policy formulation and internal discussion. These other cases affected the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Work and Pensions.

What's interesting in this case is that the Treasury decided not to contest it at the - the hearing was scheduled for next month - but to concede now. Possibly this was influenced by the decisions already issued by the Tribunal in the DfES and DWP cases, which may have persuaded Treasury lawyers that their resistance was going nowhere.

The DfES and DWP shortly have to announce whether they will continue to take their battles against the release of internal advice and discussion to the next stage of the High Court, or whether they will now release the information.

For some, this is what the Freedom of Information Act was always really meant to be about. For others, it's what most worried them about it.

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