Is it public knowledge?
Attended a seminar last night given by Kevin Dunion, the
He gave a very impressive and insightful account of his work, but there's a limit to what I can tell you about it, as the seminar was held under the - which is much misunderstood but broadly says that participants can reveal what was said but not who said it.
Given that the job of a journalist is to find things out and tell people about them, is it right for journalists to obey such rules? Is it even stranger when the seminar is about freedom of information?
Well, if I wasn't happy to accept the conditions, then I suppose I needn't have gone.
But here's one interesting fact anyway. 55 per cent of the complaints to Dunion come from ordinary individuals, 20 per cent from solicitors (and one firm in particular), and only 7 per cent from journalists. That makes it seem as if we in the media are an easily satisfied bunch. Perhaps we are.
The seminar was held at the , which is gearing up to carry out what could be some very interesting research on FOI and how it's working in practice.
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Since the inception of our government information policy seminar series in 2001, the policy for discussion and question and answer sessions has been according to Chatham House Rule. The reasoning behind this is to allow officials and others who speak at the seminar - whether as the main speaker or part of the audience - to feel uninhibited in making comments and remarks. As some of this discussion leads to actual policy making, we feel it is a good way to encourage free and frank dialogue. That is not to say that we're trying to remove 'access' to the information shared at the events - just that we consider the level of engagement paramount and that engagement is facilitated by CHR.
I quite like Scottish "Informaton" Commissioner - is he a kind of information automaton? (it's ok I know it's a typo). Nice blog too - good blend of juicy info and the politics behind its release.