Richard A. Chapman - Open Government in a Theoretical and Practical Context

First published 2006 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Copyright 2006 Richard A. Chapman and Michael Hunt for all chapters with the exception of Chapter 10, for which copyright is held by the Controller of HMSO.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Open government in a theoretical and practical context

1. Freedom of information - Great Britain 2. Official secrets

- Great Britain 3. Great Britain - Politics and government -

1997-

I. Chapman, Richard A. II. Hunt, Michael, 1947-

323.4450941

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Open government in a theoretical and practical context / edited by Richard A. Chapman

and Michael Hunt.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7546-4642-4

1. Freedom of information--Great Britain. 2. Transparency in government--Great

Britain. I. Chapman, Richard A. II. Hunt, Michael, 1947-

JN329.S4O644 2006

352.38--dc22

2005037634

ISBN 9780754646426 (hbk)

Michael Hunt and Richard A. Chapman

Lord Goodhart

Simon James

Michael Hunt

Geoffrey Hunt

Richard A. Chapman

Barry J. OToole

Robert Behrens

James Michael

Susan Healy

John A. Taylor, Miriam Lips and Joe Organ

Richard A. Chapman and Michael Hunt

Frank Cranmer

Apart from the first and last chapters, this book contains the revised versions of papers given at the Public Administration Committee (PAC) Research Workshop on Freedom of Information, which was held in St Aidans College, Durham University, from 4 to 6 April 2005. The Workshop was planned and organized by Richard A. Chapman and Michael Hunt. All the participants are grateful to the Joint University Council for a grant towards the expenses of the project; to Sir Kenneth Calman, Vice-Chancellor of Durham University, for his encouragement and for sponsoring a reception on the first evening; to Professor Tony Antoniou, Dean of Durham Business School, for administrative support for the Workshop; and to Mrs Dorothy Anson, the Sales and Conference Administrator at St Aidans College, for ensuring that the accommodation and domestic arrangements were to such a high standard. We are also grateful to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy which, through the PAC, made funds available to cover some of the expenses associated with the workshop.

At the Workshop, all participants had roles to play: there were no free riders. Participants preparing papers consulted widely before and during the Workshop. Discussants were appointed for each paper, and the papers were revised, not only after the Workshop sessions, but again after further comments had been sought from discussants and the editors. The Workshop also benefited from a special session devoted to publication plans. All the contributions have therefore been specially written for this book; none has been published elsewhere; and all have been revised after extensive discussion and consultation.

We are particularly grateful to Lord Goodhart for kindly agreeing to deliver a keynote address to the Workshop on the initial experience of the Freedom of Information Act, 2000. He provided an excellent introduction to our discussions and his revised paper is included as a chapter in the book.

The authors of the individual chapters accept full responsibility for what they have written. All wish to express their thanks to the other Workshop participants, who served not only as discussants and/or chairmen, but also as peer referees for the chapters. In addition, Robert Behrens wishes to thank, for additional comments, Richard Jarvis, Trevor Robinson and Gemma Craigan; and Simon James wishes to thank Robert Hazell.

This book is a successor to Open Government: a study of the prospects of open government within the limitations of the British political system , edited by Richard A. Chapman and Michael Hunt (Croom Helm, 1987). That book also resulted from a PAC Research Workshop: it was very well received and it was reprinted in 1989. There are significant differences between that book and the present volume: over nearly twenty years new topics have become important in the open government debate and there have been new emphases on legislative provision both nationally and internationally. The main criterion for inclusion in this book was what participants felt were the most important topics in open government at the present time. Limitations of space restricted the number of contributions and we regretted that there was no participation from the Department for Constitutional Affairs: our nine attempts at contacting a possible contributor there met with courtesy and interest but nothing more perhaps this is a useful insight into openness in government. Co-operation was never denied but it simply never materialized.

R.A.C.
M.H.

Robert Behrens has been Secretary to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the independent standards watchdog which reports to the Prime Minister, since February 2003. He joined the Civil Service in 1990 after a career in higher education. He was head of the Civil Service Colleges Southern Africa Development Unit from 1992 to 1997. During this time he worked on the transformation of the South African civil service and contributed to the work of the South African Constitutional Assembly in Cape Town. He was promoted to the UK Senior Civil Service in 1997. Before joining the Committee on Standards he was director of the Cabinet Offices International Public Service Group between 1997 and 2003, using international donor funding to develop civil service capacity-building in a range of emerging democracies including Accession States to the European Union and former Yugoslavia.

Richard A. Chapman is Emeritus Professor of Politics, Durham University and Honorary Research Fellow in Durham Business School. He previously taught at Carleton University in Canada and the Universities of Leicester, Liverpool and Birmingham; before that he was a civil servant. He was Chairman of the Public Administration Committee (PAC) of the Joint University Council 197781. His most recent book is The Civil Service Commission 18551991: A Bureau Biography (Routledge, 2004). In 1999 he was elected a founding Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences (Ac.S.S.).

Frank Cranmer has spent most of his professional life at the House of Commons, where he is currently Clerk of Bills, responsible for the passage of primary legislation through the House. He was an Assistant Editor for the 23rd edition of Erskine May , which was published in 2004. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow in the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff Law School and his principal academic interest is in Church-State relations and church governance.