Fife’s SNP group leader has called for an investigation into the council’s compliance with the Freedom of Information Act after a “damning report” from the Scottish Information Commissioner.
Councillor Peter Grant said he had applied to the commissioner after the council had twice refused to make public any of the budget information issued in confidence to councillors ahead of this year’s budget meeting.
Six months later, the council published most of the document. The commissioner has completed her investigation and has confirmed that the council failed to comply in part with the law in its handling of Mr Grant’s request.
However, given that the information was disclosed during the investigation, she did not need the local authority to take any action.
Mr Grant said the ruling raised serious questions about the administration’s willingness to comply with either the letter or the spirit of the legislation.
Mr Grant, who is asking the standards and audit committee to investigate, said while the commissioner’s rulings were “always couched in very careful language”, there was no hiding from the fact that this is a “damning indictment of Fife Council”.
“This was not just a minor misjudgment on some obscure point of law,” he said. “The council’s actions amounted to a concerted and deliberate attempt to keep this information secret, even though they were clearly under a legal obligation to disclose it.
“First they tried to fob me off with reasons that anyone could see had no basis in law. Then, instead of having this refusal reviewed by someone who had played no part in the original decision, the review was done by the same senior member of staff who had advised the council to refuse the initial request.
“While all this was going on, senior members of the Labour administration were launching personal attacks on me in the council chamber for daring to exercise my rights as a citizen in asking for this information.”
He said it was now public record that senior officers of Fife Council said that releasing this information would be against the public interest and would, in the words of the act, be seriously prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs.
“This was their position right up to the start of May 2013. Then at the end of May, the council released the information anyway without offering a single word of apology or explanation for their spectacular U-turn.”
Council leader Alex Rowley hit back saying: “It is worth noting that the SNP were in charge of Fife Council for five years up to 2012 and neither they nor the then council leader Peter Grant published any of this information.
“In the last year, more information has been published than ever before and now the whole content of the budget proposals from council officials has been published.
“It is also worth noting that for the first time in November we published a draft budget, which meant more detail than ever before.”
Mr Rowley said it should be remembered the SNP left a “gaping hole” in the social work budget and “practised fantasy budgeting” around key services such as public toilets, while presiding over record levels of bed-blocking.
“This may explain their obsession with process rather than budget but we must face up to the facts,” he said.
“The fact is that the Scottish Government funding of Fife Council will result in a £100 million gap over the next four years and that must be where our focus remains.”
“We are providing more detail around budgets than ever before and will continue to improve on the levels of engagement and consultation as we face up to the major challenges ahead.”