Nicholas Dobson analyses freedom of information & commercial interests
- A local authority failed to demonstrate prejudice to any commercial interests caused by disclosure of relevant information about an airport formerly owned by the council but in which it now had only a small minority shareholding.
- There is a public interest in the transparency of council decisions.
As the Nobel Prize-winning author, Elias Canetti, once wrote: ‘Secrecy lies at the very core of power’. This, I suggest, is why Labour introduced the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA 2000).
As Tony Blair said at the Campaign for Freedom of Information Awards in 1996, his proposal for Labour to introduce a Freedom of Information Bill was ‘not some isolated constitutional reform that we are proposing’. It was in fact ‘a change that is absolutely fundamental to how we see politics developing in this country over the next few years’. For ‘information is power and any government’s attitude about sharing information with the people actually says a great deal about how it views power itself
