Mar 20 2007
There is no freedom of information despite the law - the case of the Olympics
Once again I have been blocked on a freedom for information request.
I asked to see the KPMG report into the costs of the Olympics. We are paying a lot for all this advice and it would be good to know what we have been buying for?? our money.
I wrote on 19th December to DCMS. In?? February I was told that KPMG had indeed been working on this issue for almost a year from October 2005 but there is no"report".
So I then asked to see the working papers they had produced.
On 14 March they sent me a reply. They have decided this information is "exempt" under the Act - i.e. we will not be allowed to see it!
What a disgrace! I suppose the only good news is that at least it shows they are ashamed of their lack of grip on Olympic costs, and they clearly don’t want us learning anything more about how they have gone so wrong.
??
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
And you have to believe that if the KPMG report showed that Tessa and the DCMS had an iron grip on spending, a clear idea of the delivery strategy and a vice like adherence to the development program, they would be trumpeting it from the rooftops. So the fact we can’t see it rather confirms what we may already suspect to be true.
Incidentally, can you think of any other sector or industry where you could cheerfully report you got the costs wrong, they were in fact almost four times the original estimate and therefore it was necessary to find another
I made a FOI request a few months back. I asked how much Holmehouse Prison spends on computer games and sky tv. They have been refusing to give it to me because it could damage their reputation.
Anything that will make them look very bad they will not tell us about it.