the Director of Legal and Governance advises that the detailed lease terms are commercially sensitive and would therefore fall within an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act.When Council officers invoke the Legal Department it's as well to be suspicious. It usually means they are trying to keep something hidden. Freedom of Information is regarded as a terrible imposition on officers and, sadly, many elected members too. Some outside these groups will be intrigued that commercial sensitivity needs to be raised at all seeing as the organisations involved are non-profit charities and public bodies.
One can assume that certain commercial operations are carried on by RSPB and NT and those are well known to visitors to their sites around the country. But it would be helpful to the public to know the headings related to the areas of commercial interest that are being withheld from the public for reasons of commercial sensitivity, even if they won't tell us the precise details. Are RSPB/NT paying the Council anything beyond the stated peppercorn for being able to carry out some of their activities which do raise funds for them? We have to assume not otherwise it should be stated, but is anyone asking why not? There is some measure of competition going on between the wildlife and conservation charities with the wildlife trusts doubtless being disappointed that it's the RSPB/NT, not them, that are furthering their empire-building.
It's usually money involved when somethings being kept secret. There's a good deal of money to be considered here. There's the large amount of Higher Level Stewardship and the Single Farm Payments to start with. Those should anyway be open to public scrutiny and some of it can be looked up but the process I find less than user friendly. Both are substantial amounts. Another area is personnel. The practice of passing employees across from Sheffield to the National Trust has been remarked before. Will there be more of it?
No comments:
Post a Comment