Tag Archives: chilling effect

What the RHI Inquiry tells us about the ‘chilling effect’ of freedom of information laws

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The report into the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme provided an insight into the functioning of government in Northern Ireland. Ben Worthy examines the extent to which it revealed that freedom of information laws have produced a ‘chilling effect’ and affected the completeness of the public record when it comes to ministerial discussions and decisions.

One of the biggest fears for transparency campaigners is that Freedom of Information (FOI) laws could create an incentive to hide instead of open up. Could the presence of such laws lead to officials and politicians trying to hide from them, or even fight them? The particular concern is that laws designed to increase transparency might instead empty out the official record, so that meetings go un-minuted, conversations go unrecorded and that important audit trails simply disappear. Even where it goes on, this so-called ‘chilling effect’ is notoriously hard to prove. 

This was one of the many concerns raised as a consequence of scrutiny of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme in Northern Ireland. The alleged mishandling of the scheme partially led to the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive in January 2017 and prompted an official inquiry, which reported last month. Back in March 2018, giving evidence to the RHI Inquiry, the Head of Northern Ireland’s Civil Service, David Sterling, admitted that ‘the practice of taking minutes had “lapsed” after devolution’ and mentioned FOI specifically as a factor. Continue reading →

Light and shadows: the RHI scandal and the temptations of secrecy

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The RHI inquiry in Northern Ireland has led to concerns about a record ‘void’ that has left room for doubt and suspicion. Ben Worthy argues that the lack of a record might aid political deniability, but means that politicians also can’t be truly exonerated when accused of wrongdoing.

Marilyn Stathern, in her famous article on the ‘Tyranny of transparency’, asked: ‘what does visibility conceal’?  While openness can shed light on some areas, it can also create shadows and shade to hide in. One of the biggest fears for transparency campaigners is that openness will create an opposite and equal reaction. Instead of letting in the light, could freedom of information laws, open meetings or open data lead to officials and politicians trying to hide from them, or even fight them? Could it create what’s called a ‘chilling effect’, whereby officials and politicians bury their decisions elsewhere?

Finding any firm evidence for resistance, avoidance or concealment is notoriously difficult. It could take place in numerous ways, whether avoiding questions or requests, keeping records and decisions off paper, or using non-official emails or networks like WhatsApp. It’s hard to prove a negative, that something isn’t happening and, if avoidance done well, it should stay hidden. Only the most incompetent or inept are likely to be caught.

A few concrete examples have surfaced. We have had flashes of an apparent ‘chilling’ in the Trump White House and closer to home with Michael Gove using a private email address for public business in 2012 (as urged by his then adviser Dominic Cummings). More worrying was the evidence in Scotland in 2018 that some parts of government were engaged in ‘deliberate delaying tactics and requests being blocked or refused for tenuous reasons’. But are these isolated cases or the tip of an iceberg of systematic resistance? Studies have come to varying conclusions and a select committee in 2012 concluded that there was no firm evidence.

However, it now looks as though transparency campaigners’ worst nightmare has come to pass in Northern Ireland’s RHI scandal, as detailed in Sam McBride’s new book Burned. The RHI scandal, as the later Inquiry FAQ explains, concerns ‘the non-domestic renewable heat incentive… a financial incentive for businesses to move away from non-renewable sources of energy’. However, the FAQ goes on, ‘how the scheme came about in the form in which it was adopted, how it has been operated and the possible financial consequences of the scheme have become the source of considerable public concern’. You can see the background here and a timeline. Continue reading →

A case for publishing select committee legal advice

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g_appleby_headshot.jpg.pngIn May, we posted a blog entitled ‘The politics of publishing select committee advice’ in which the authors discussed the potential negative implications of making public the legal advice given to parliamentary committees. Here, Gabrielle Appleby argues that there are in fact benefits to publishing such advice, and that it could be advantageous to parliamentarians and the public if it was done as a matter of course. 

The work that has been done by Ben Yong, Greg Davies and Cristina Leston-Bandeira, (as explained in their recent post, ‘The politics of publishing select committee advice,’ and in more detail in their publication in the Law and Society Journal), with their focus on parliamentarians, clerks and parliamentary lawyers, is an important contribution to understanding under-studied constitutional actors. Their work provides more than doctrinal examination or theoretical musing on the work of these actors. It is informed by a rich empirical insight into the phenomenon of the release by parliamentary select committees of in-house legal advice that might have been provided to them to inform their deliberations, which they say is increasing in a concerning manner. 

I welcome their general conclusion, that there is a need for ‘written guidance in order to improve consistency’ around the publication of such advice. However, I write to proffer a version of that guidance that is not just more permissive of publication than that alluded to by the authors, but, indeed, actively encourages it.

How should parliamentary committees use legal advice?

As I have written with my colleague Anna Olijnyk, I support a framework in which  parliamentary deliberations are informed by legal advice (including the deliberation of parliamentary committees) and that advice should be released as a matter of course. 

To justify my position I must first explain my starting point. Like Yong, Davies and Leston-Bandeira, I hold concerns about the juridification of politics, and, more specifically, about the over-reliance on legal advice to inhibit the legitimate development of policies and laws. Responding to that concern in the context of constitutional limits (coming as we do in Australia from a tradition of a written constitution), Olijnyk and I have developed a normative framework for executive and legislative deliberation, which tries to balance the tug of the rule of law towards legally enforced rules and norms against the need for flexibility and innovation in political decision-making. We propose a framework in which the legal position must inform political decision-making, and in some cases will be determinative. But, in many cases of ambiguity and indeterminacy, it will inform without dictating the outcome. Continue reading →

Risk of a Chill?

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ImageThe Tribunal has now released details of its final decision over NHS Risk Registers, a risk assessment of controversial reforms to the NHS. The concerns centred on the potential damage release would have and whether it would have a chilling effect in reducing records kept, or in other ways restrict policy-making (see here for our views).

It has a classic defence of the chilling effect from Former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell on p.15:

‘Lord O’Donnell was very concerned that if there was routine disclosure of risk registers at the stage they were requested in this case that ultimately they would lose their effectiveness as a vital management tool for government and this would have a profound and damaging effect on the public interest in sound policy-making for the following principal reasons:

  • frankness and candour which are essential to the usefulness of risk registers would be fundamentally damaged;
  • the likelihood of the risks materialising would increase;
  • it would distract policy makers from their task at a crucial point in the process of formulation and development; and
  • there was a danger that disclosure of the risks in the form that they are set out in the risk registers could harm rather than assist public debate.’

The tribunal seemed less sure

We note that independent research carried out by the Constitution Unit at University College London has concluded that there is little evidence of FOIA leading to a chilling effect. Also in a previous case, OGC v IC EA/2006/2068 & 80 (“OGC”), where the Information Tribunal ordered the disclosure of Gateway Reviews apparently there has been no evidence of a chilling effect since their release.

It asked the opinion of Jon Healey, the (now opposition) MP making the FOI request , who was formerly a Minister

Mr Healey was the Minister responsible for the Office of Government Commerce at the time and said that there was no evidence that a chilling effect developed as a result of the release of the reviews even after he moved to The Treasury.

It ends with two statements that sum up the difficulties with the chilling effect

Lord O’Donnell said it was very difficult to prove one way or the other whether a chilling effect would take place.

Mr Healey expressed the view, that in his experience as a Minister, that the quality of submissions on policy had tended to improve since the above disclosures.

A further difficulty is the complications of the policy process. NHS reform has proved particularly complicated and controversial, as the Tribunal points out

From the evidence it is clear that the NHS reforms were introduced in an exceptional way. There was no indication prior to the White Paper that such wide-ranging reforms were being considered. The White Paper was published without prior consultation. It was published within a very short period after the Coalition Government came into power. It was unexpected. Consultation took place afterwards over what appears to us a very short period considering the extent of the proposed reforms. The consultation hardly changed policy but dealt largely with implementation. Even more significantly the Government decided to press ahead with some of the policies even before laying a Bill before Parliament. The whole process had to be paused because of the general alarm at what was happening.

The problem is that many FOI requests that touch on the policy process will be for matters that are already controversial or sensitive (the war In Iraq, devolution etc)-will there ever be case that is not in some way special?

Should We Give Them Some Space? FOI and Cabinet decisions

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The retiring Cabinet Secretary Gus O’ Donnell spoke in an interview today about the need to amend FOI to protect decision-making. He was concerned that the possibility of release led to officials ‘fudging’ the minutes.

“I want the minutes to accurately to reflect what people have said. I want good governance…I want them to have an open space. I want us not to be fudging the issue by saying there was a little discussion.”

He also spoke of the nervousness over lack of certainty in the law over Cabinet discussions.

‘He said he wanted more certainty that Cabinet minutes would be protected than offered by the current law, suggesting amendments to the Freedom of Information Act. “If we could draft it in a way that would really enhance openness and transparency whilst allowing some safe space, that would be good for all of us”.

What Gus O’ Donnell is referring to is a variant of the so-called Chilling Effect.  We have concluded that FOI can have this effect but it doesn’t do so systemically and it is almost impossible to disentangle the effect of FOI from lots of other concerns (see page 16-18 in our local government report). However, these conclusions come with qualifications.

1. Finding evidence is very tough. FOI does cause nervousness but whether it then leads to changes is more difficult to prove. Gus also said in his interview ‘ he had not “fudged” any minutes, but was “nervous”. It would be interesting to see firm evidence and if the fudging refers to particular incidents or a general ‘shift’ in minute taking approaches. We found one or two clear cut cases but they were rare and unusual. Proving a negative and asking officials to admit unprofessional conduct is tricky.

2. Is it FOI to blame? Gus said that “Can I guarantee that this is going to stay private? No, I can’t.” But inhibitions (or lack thereof) over discussions are down to many things. Leaks were, are and always will be a huge issue- who said or did not say what and when was central to many recent controversies issues from the War in Iraq to the EU veto.  A well timed leak can hinder many enemies foreign and domestic. Even US Cabinet discussion about the impact of Wikileaks was leaked.

3. Many politicians and officials told us that the ‘politics’ of decision is often ‘off paper’. How and why minutes are recorded how they is due to many things from style to resources. It plays into wider styles of ‘doing’ decisions. Do you do unminuted ‘sofa government’ or are you more formal?

4. Interestingly, overall there were some paradoxical views held. Officials at other levels were more concerned about the consequences of not having a record rather than having one.

5. Very few requests are actually made for Cabinet documents. Only one release of Cabinet Minutes has taken place over Thatcher’s controversial ‘Westland’ affair. Some countries, such as Canada,  actually completely exclude all Cabinet material from FOI.

However, nervousness abounds among officials especially at senior level. This may also be heighted due to how they come into contact with FOI. Senior officials will only be copied into particularly sensitive or problematic requests. Unless they are particularly curious they will only see one in every hundred or thousand and the ‘worst’ one at that. In Ireland, such concern did help lead to a change in the law as it related to Cabinet documents.

Finally, Gus also spoke about the use of the ‘veto’ (called in the article the ‘nuclear weapon’) which can be deployed to overturn appeal decisions. This protection, then, is available but it has only been deployed twice in the UK. This compares with 48 times in the same early years of FOI in Australia. This seems to point to a perverse incentive-unlike a nuclear weapon or an EU veto – the more it is used the less attention it gets.