A regional daily has launched a new anti-secrecy campaign with the aim of uncovering the ‘hidden facts affecting people’s everyday lives.’
The Star, Sheffield, launched its ‘Your Right to Know’ campaign last week with a splash about the cost of unpaid council tax bills.
The newspaper will also be looking into such issues as public sector sickness rates, and the cost of cancelled hospital operations.
Using existing legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act, The Star plans to publish reports and investigate how money is spent and how well public services are being delivered.
Editor Jeremy Clifford said: “We live in an increasingly secretive age where a lot of news and information is revealed only if people ask for it.
“The Freedom of Information Act was introduced as an attempt to force public authorities – bodies paid for from your money – to reveal more about how they spend their funding.
“That expenditure covers the way councils, the emergency services and public bodies allocate their resources, how they cover their staffing costs, and what compensation payments they have to pay as well as how good they are at collecting taxes.
“All of these have a bearing on how well our money is spent.
The Star launched its 'Your Right to Know' campaign this week
“In education, we should know about truancy rates, assaults on staff, take-up of school meals and how often pupils are expelled.
“In all of these areas, and many more, information is not freely available. It has to be requested, which is why the Freedom of Information Act was a welcome piece of legislation. But even now there are far too many organisations who want to see the FOI curtailed, claiming it is too expensive to respond to requests from members of the public.”
He added that it would champion the cause of open access to information and reveal hidden facts and news stories about how the public’s money was spent.
One of The Star’s first major successes with the Freedom of Information Act involved a two-year battle to reveal details about excessive expense claims made by officers and members of Doncaster Council in which council representatives had enjoyed a ‘jet set lifestyle’ at ratepayers’ expense.
Some councillors ended up being prosecuted and jailed as a result of the findings.
The ‘Your Right to Know’ campaign has been backed by key figures, including Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough MP David Blunkett.
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*Sigh”
They’re basically running a series of stories based on the most hackneyed round robin FOIs and dressing it up as a campaign.
The reality is that every regional daily worth is salt will run virtually the same stories over the course of a year.
Fair enough, but don’t make a song and dance about it.
Get some reporters on to the patch and find some real stories.
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And, at the end of the year, can we expect the Star to ask the Council to provide a breakdown of the cost of answering FoI requests this year compared with last? And will the paper then calculate the cost per column inch of its coverage resulting from FoI requests?
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“We live in an increasingly secretive age”: really? I’d disagree with this. In the age of the internet, FoI, etc, there is more information accessible at the click of a mouse/Google, etc than ever before.
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Cynics! I think this is a well-presented campaign, and one that can grab readers’ attention. And we all know that this is needed on quiet news days. Yes, you’re right that it shouldn’t be used as a reason for not having reporters out there gathering human stories. But this is not suggesting that. I like the front page pictured and rate the campaign.
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A couple of ridiculous comments above.
Yes, the Star might be making FOIs that many others make but they are drawing attention to how public information is kept secret.
The public at large are not aware, so the Star campaign should be applauded.
If public information was more readily available there would be need. There is a need, so hats off to the Star.
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Does everybody need to know about everything… or is it just information overload?
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Easy targets aren’t they? But good luck. Sheffield is a great place to be and it deserves a newspaper passionate about the city.
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As a former political reporter on a regional daily these are all stories I covered every year. None of it was secret. As a journalist you just need to know where to look and who to ask – isn’t that what we do?
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Doncaster has one of the most secretive and bent councils in the country so good luck to the star
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I agree that FoI stories can be abit ovedone in local newspapers, but what the Star is doing here is presenting a series of otherwise run-of-the-mill financial stories in a bright and campaigning format. I think the front page looks quite good
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Nothing like supporting your colleagues.
Of course it would be ideal to get reporters on patch but the Star has about 70 per cent less reporters than it used to – they DON’T HAVE TIME.
This is bad, but hardly the Star’s fault. We all know who to blame.
Good on them for doing something inventive – even if it is fairydust, it makes it look different and grabs attention.
Better than splashing on press release after press release like half the other regionals.
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But the council tax figures for Doncaster were added up over 10 years, duplicated and included ones being paid on court orders over a period of time. By their logic if there was £100 owing in 2009 and someone pays of £2 of that in £2010 the council now have a defecit of £198.
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If you can’t get a proper story, stir up fear/ resentment/ hysteria/ etc over something which is a fact of life. Like the Dailies Express and Mail. Hogwash
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Good campaign.
It is definitely getting harder to get information which was easily available even a couple of years ago. Regularly finding we have to put FOI requests in for stuff we would previously be given after a phone call.
Far too many press officers (could put a full stop there) have a default “no release if vaguely controversial” policy.
So the guidelines for releasing information either aren’t clear enough to local authorities, or are being deliberately ignored as there’s no incentive or punishment for them to release information.
Public interest and transparency clearly aren’t good enough reasons for them.
Ignore the cynics above – if they can’t see the secrecy creep they’re either lucky with their local authorities or don’t care enough.
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The default position of many public bodies is, indeed, not to publish press releases if anything is controversial.
When FOI’d they delay and use all sorts of nonsense excuses, knowing that the ICO will rarely, if ever, fine them.
We ARE becoming more secretive. Public bodies are now lobbying hard to have FOI curtailed using the excuse of cost. Good luck to the Star.
One thing the Star should try is FOIing public bodies that have set themselves up as ‘industrial and providential socities’. Charities rightly don’t have to respond to FOI requests – so the NHS (for one) is channelling money for political campaigning through bogus providential societies that they have set up EXCLUSIVELY for the purpose of political campaigning. It’s morally corrupt and needs exposing.
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