Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

The Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC) has just released the formal decision in connection with my appeal against Glasgow City Council's refusal to provide information about the discretionary pension benefits paid to a senior council official. I am pleased to say that the City Council lost the argument - yet again. More details to follow soon including the full SIC decision, but my immediate reaction is: "When will these people ever learn?" and/or "Why are they paid such handsome salaries when they get things so badly wrong?" In the meantime here are two posts from the blog site archive which explain the background to this important judgement.        Glasgow's Low Paid Workers Get 'Capped' - Council Boss Cops £250,000 Pay 'Bonus' (24/06/17) Glasgow City Council have suddenly backtracked on the previous decision to refuse my FoI request regarding the payment of 'added years' to boost a senior official's l...

Glasgow City Council is behaving very badly if you ask me, by refusing to provide me with details of its controversial EDC (Employee Development Commitment) scheme. So I have decided to ask the City Council to review its decision to decline my request on the grounds of cost - see letter below. Carole Forrest Director of Governance and Solicitor to the Council Glasgow City Council Dear Ms Forrest FoI Review Request I refer to the letter from Glasgow City Council dated 7 July 2017 rejecting my earlier FoI request on the grounds that the cost involved exceeds £600. I am asking for a review of the City Council's initial decision for the following reasons: 1 In my view the cost of providing the information I have requested is minimal and requires only an hour or two of someone's time. 2 The information must be contained in Council Committee reports and, as such, is capable of being readily and easily retrieved from digital or paper records. 3 By my reckoning the Council's...

Saudi Arabia is normally the target of jokes on the internet about women not being allowed to drive cars although this one aimed at Iran kills 'two birds' with one stone by poking fun at the need to observe a strict religious dress code in certain Muslim countries as well.  Complete madness if you ask me, but in this case set to the perfect musical accompaniment.     Mad Mufti (06/12/13) Mufti and the Monarch The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia has proclaimed that the ban on women driving in this repressive  Islamic state protects society from “evil”. What a plonker! - you have to say - while wondering why women are able to work other modern inventions such as washing machines without any of these men in beards batting an eyelid. Anyway, the grand mufti - who is also known as - Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Al Shaikh- said in recent a speech delivered that giving women the right to drive should not be “one of society’s major conce...

Matt's cartoon in The Telegraph the other day certainly hit the nail on the head about Jeremy Corbyn and Labour's shenanigans over Brexit.       Labour on Brexit (27/07/17) Labour policy on Brexit is turning into something of a pantomime as Jeremy Corbyn says 'all options are on the table' only days after ruling out continued membership of the Single Market. One of Corbyn's key supporters in Labour's shadow cabinet (Barry Gardiner) also went out of his way this week to insist that a Labour would not support continued membership of the Customs Union. In reality, the Conservative Government is all over the place on Brexit and the same goes for the official Labour opposition. What a complete mess.       http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-barry-gardiner-labour-customs-union-eu-brexit-international-trade-secretary-a7859561.html Jeremy Corbyn upbraids Barry Gardiner for  contradi...