Two Faces of Politics

I heard from South Lanarkshire Council earlier in the week - in response to my latest Freedom of Information request.

See post below dated 8 November 2012 - 'Double Standards'.

South Lanarkshire confirms that it does indeed hold the information that I requested - in the form of:

1 Opinion from Senior and Junior Counsel for the Council dated  25 April 2012 and
2 A note of a telephone consultation held on 30 April 2012 prepared by Messrs Simpson & Marwick.

But South Lanarkshire goes on to say that it is not prepared to release the information because:

"The information you have requested attracts legal advice privilege which covers communications between lawyers and their clients in the course of which legal advice is sought or given."

Now what I don't understand is how Labour and Tory leaders in the Holyrood Parliament can jump up and down about legal advice provided to the Scottish Government - demanding that this information be released in the interests of openness, transparency and good government.

Yet the same principle seems not to apply when it comes to local government - in the shape of a Labour/Tory run council in South Lanarkshire.

Now if that's not two-faced, I don't know what is - but it's also the kind of cynical behaviour that gives politicians a bad name.

Who knows maybe someone within the council will just leak the information to the press - and put an end to all this faffing about.  

Double Standards (8 November 2012)

I have been following the recent debate in the Holyrood Parliament - during which the Scottish Labour Party has been giving the SNP Government a hard time over its attitude to Freedom of Information (FOI).

If you take Scottish Labour at its word - the party is absolutely committed to openess and transparency when it comes to FOI.

So I decided to put this theory to the test - by issuing a new FOI request to South Lanarkshire Council.

Here's what I had to say in a recent letter to the council's new chief executive - Lindsay Freeland.

I shall report back when I get a reply from the council - and/or its Labour leader Councillor Eddie McAvoy.

5 November 2012

Lindsay Freeland
Chief Executive
South Lanarkshire Council

BY E-MAIL

Dear Mr Freeland

FOISA Request

I would like to make the following request under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002.

I am asking for a copy of the legal advice obtained by South Lanarkshire Council's on which is based its appeal to the UK Supreme Court and the Council's refusal to publish pay information on Equal Pay, previously ordered by the Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC) and supported subsequently in a unanimous judgement by Lords Mackay, Brailsford and Marnoch in the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court.

I am copying this request to the Leader of South Lanarkshire Council - Councillor Eddie McAvoy - because the Leader of Councillor McAvoy's own party, Johann Lamont (the Scottish Labour Leader), has taken a keen interest in FOI matters recently, as can be seen in the following extract from First Minister's Questions on 20 September 2012, which is reproduced via the BBC's Democracy Live web site:

"Ms Lamont said the first minister 'can't be straight with or have respect for the Scottish people' as he refused to reveal what legal advice he had. She asked why he was spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of Scottish people's money to stop the people of Scotland finding out what he was doing."

So I hope South Lanarkshire Council will take the same view about the need for openness and transparency in these matters because to do otherwise would suggest that the Scottish Labour Party operates to completely different standards of behaviour - when it comes to local and national government.

I look forward to your reply and would be grateful if you could respond to me by e-mail to: markirvine@compuserve.com

Kind regards


Mark Irvine