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THE serving of two decision notices on British Waterways for breaches of the Freedom of Information Act descended into farce yesterday when British Waterways issued a refusal notice concerning a document it had already published twice, writes Allan Richards.
Complaints Officer, David McNeil has already stated that the notices will be served before the end of the month but in the meantime is encouraging British Waterways to comply by providing the information requested.
Out of time
McNeil gave British Waterways until Wednesday 18th of January to respond to five requests for information. British Waterways reported to him that they were making good progress last week but to date have only provided a response to one request which asked for the minutes of a board meeting that took place in July 2011 together with associated papers. It is understood that British Waterways have requested a short extension to the Wednesday deadline and that this has been granted.
Confidential
However, the documents provided by British Waterways are now the subject of an internal review because of the large amount of information removed (or redacted) without reason.
One document, pertaining to a meeting of British Waterways' Remuneration Committee was withheld in its entirety and a refusal notice given citing an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act.
Refusal Notice
The rather pompous refusal notice read 'The June minutes of the remuneration committee are exempt from disclosure as their contents comprise material the disclosure of which would, or would be likely to, inhibit the free and frank provision of advice and the free and frank exchange of views for the purposes of deliberation, Section 36 (Prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs) 2 (b)(i)(ii).'
Now 'Remuneration Minutes' should be ringing bells for narrowboatworld readers. If not, please be reminded that British Waterways' fat cats awarded themselves bonuses for last year despite it being recorded in the the minutes of no less than three remuneration committee meetings that they would not do so. Furthermore, it was found the published justification for the awards, that directors performance had allowed British Waterways to spend the same amount on maintenance as in previous years, was a complete falsehood. They had, in fact, spent £9m (or 9%) less!
Two copies
Bizarrely, the document that British Waterways now considers so secret has already been published! Stranger still they have published it twice, once on whatdotheyknow.com in response to a Freedom of Information request and once on British Waterways' own website for unknown reasons.
Why so secret?
The answer, it would seem, has nothing to do with directors bonus but everything to do with payment of directors under Canal & River Trust. It seems that the ever helpful fat cats presented transition trustee, Jane Cotton, with reports from Thomas Cole Kinder's Lesley Fletcher and Agenda Consultant's Tim Evans justifying remunerations packages under Canal & River Trust so that the transition trustees were saved the trouble of doing so.
Very thoughtful of them!
We are, of course, still awaiting for Tony Hales to honour his pledge to give details of directors remuneration packages under Canal & River Trust well before April. |
