Fun with Freedom of Information
It strikes me that, with one thing and another, I never mentioned a Freedom of Information request that I put in last year.
On 2nd October last year, Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office Minister, made a speech backing his plans for Civil Service reform. In the speech, he stated that "Permanent Secretaries have blocked agreed Government policy from going ahead or have advised other officials not to implement ministerial decisions." I thought this was somewhat curious, so I asked the Cabinet Office to provide a list of occasions on which Permanent Secretaries had blocked government policy or advised other officials not to implement ministerial decisions." On 31st October, I got a response:
"I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records I have established that no recorded information is held by the Cabinet Office..."
So, did the Cabinet Office Minister hold information and evidence which he'd failed to pass on to his Department (strange, given that the Cabinet Office has responsibility for Civil Service Reform, and such behaviour would be a serious matter, possibly giving rise to disciplinary proceedings)? Or were the allegations in the speech based on anecdotal reports (which, it has to be said, is not usually accepted by Ministers as a reasonable basis for making policy)?
Moving on to more recent events, on 26th June this year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his House of Commons statement regarding the 2013 Spending Round. During the statement, Mr Osborne stated that action taken by the government had "Taken our economy back from the brink of bankruptcy."
Now this statement caught my eye. Firstly, because you'd really hope that the Second Lord of the Treasury would know enough about UK financial law to realise that, in this country, an institution can't be legally bankrupt, only an individual can. Secondly because, even if you take "bankruptcy" and define it less technically, it seems an awfully big claim to make, and not one that's entirely credible - it's not as if the country was ever in a position where it couldn't pay its debts, or as if the bailiffs were looking to repossess 10 Downing St, after all.
So, I read the Spending Round documents. There's a lot about deficit reductions, but nothing to suggest that the British economy was ever on the verge of collapse as "on the brink of bankruptcy" seems to imply. So it was FoI Request time. I asked HM Treasury for "...all evidence held...to support the claim that the British economy was on the brink of bankruptcy at the point the coalition government took office..." and additionally "copies of all and any records of conversations or correspondence between Ministers, Civil Servants and/or special advisors regarding the use of that particular phrase in the Chancellor's statement".
Yesterday, I got a response. It may seem slightly familiar:
"I can confirm that after a search of our records, HM Treasury does not hold any specific information on the text you refer to from the Chancellor's statement or any correspondence between ministers, civil servants or special advisors on it." There was, however, one addition. "However, to be helpful, I suggest that you may wish to look at the fiscal section of Chapter One of the Autumn Statement 2013 and the Budget 2013."
I did, as was suggested. Have you ever read Treasury reports? Stimulating they ain't. But I got through them. And yet, whilst there's a lot of figures suggesting that the economy was in a bad state in 2010, again, there's nothing that I can see to suggest that the UK was ever "on the brink of bankruptcy."
And this is what gets me. As far as I can tell (and granted I'm not an economist, so there may be something I've missed in the Spending Round, Budget or Autumn Statement), there's no evidence held by the Treasury to suggest that the UK was, or could ever be, on the brink on bankruptcy in 2010. The statement is simply not true. There's no records of discussion of the use of the phrase, so I can only assume that it was inserted either by George Osborne himself, or by an aide not officially employed by, or working in, the Treasury - a party rather than Departmental figure. If he'd just said "the deficit was too high and spending was out of control", I'd debate the points, but it's something that the coalition and its supporters could argue with figures (even 'though the figures are dubious and the arguments flawed). To use the phrase employed is baseless scaremongering, pure and simple. It's a soundbite with no tangible reality in fact, and yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer was prepared to state it as fact, to the British public, and on record to the House of Commons.