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THE concept of mushroom management is well known, writes Allan Richards. Keep them in the dark and feed them.
However, BW goes a step further with mushroom board meetings.
Despite having a policy of openness and accountability BW keeps us in the dark concerning board meetings and, instead, feeds us a diet of misleading Press releases.
Bad news
Board minutes often contain bad news as far as BW's executive is concerned. Little wonder, that in the past, BW has delayed publication of minutes. It had the perfect excuse for delay as its policy was not to publish minutes until after its next board meeting. With board meetings two months apart and after taking a somewhat elastic meaning timely availability of minutes was never achieved.
Pyrrhic victory
In 2009, an important victory was won. BW's board accepted that there was no reason why minutes of board meetings could not be published within two to three weeks. However, it proved a pyrrhic victory with BW putting less information into minutes, and more into associated unpublished documents marked 'confidential'. Needless to say it still delays publication.
Call my bluff
In January 2010 a Freedom of Information Act request was made (via whatdotheyknow.com) asking for:
1. Confirmation that the policy was altered by the board at
its meeting on 16th July 2009 to provide minutes within "a few
weeks" of the meeting rather than an unspecified time after the
following meeting.
2. An explanation as to why the BW website has not been updated to
reflect the new policy.
3. An explanation as to why only briefing notes in the form of the
chief executives report are provided when board minutes are
published rather than all reports.
4. An explanation as to why sub committee minutes noted at board
meeting are not published prior to or at the same time as full
board minutes.
In addition the request also asked for a copy of all reports, sub committee minutes and other documents mentioned in the minutes of the board meeting held on the 28th January 2010 which were not published with the minutes.
BW's response was typical. It simply ignored the request pretending it had not seen it!
Not above the law
However, some four months after the information was requested government has finally acted to ensure a response is provided.
Tony Dixon, of the Information Commissioner's Office, has written to BW providing it with a copy of the original request, reminding it of its responsibilities and asking it to respond within 10 working days.
Whilst it is still in the public sector, it seems that BW is not above the law!
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