Senior civil servants and lawyers spent several hours in
a secret meeting on Monday before opting to go to the High Court to
try to stop the results of early "Gateway reviews" on ID cards
being published.
Gateway reviews are independent assessments of risky IT-based
projects and programmes throughout their lifecycle. The reviews are
managed by the Treasury's Office of Government Commerce.
In January 2005 the OGC received a request under the Freedom of
Information Act for early Gateway reviews on the ID cards scheme to
be published.
The OGC refused the request and the case went before the
Information Commissioner.
Last July the Commissioner ruled that the reviews cards should
be published, a decision which could have opened the way for
Gateway reviews on other risky IT projects to be published.
But the OGC appealed against this decision to the Information
Tribunal.
On 2 May 2007, the Information Tribunal rejected the OGC’s
appeal.
This gave the OGC 30 days to decide whether to appeal to the
High Court, a deadline which expired yesterday [30 May 2007].
Launching a High Court appeal is not a straightforward decision.
The High Court will consider an appeal only on specific points of
law, not on the OGC’s general disagreement with the decision of the
Information Tribunal.
Two House of Commons committees have also recommended that
Gateway reviews are published – the Public Accounts Committee and
the Work and Pensions Committee.
Computer Weekly has campaigned for Gateway reviews to be
published because we believe that
secrecy and a lack of accountability contribute to large-scale
failures of IT-based projects and programmes in the public
sector.
The High Court case is not due to be heard for several months.
This means that the OGC’s decision to appeal postpones any
requirement by the Information Commissioner and the Information
Tribunal to publish Gateway reviews.
An OGC spokesman said: "We do not agree with the tribunal's
findings on where the public interest lies in relation to what
information should be disclosed and what it is appropriate to
withhold.
"So far, the Gateway process has helped achieve over £2.5bn in
value for money savings. In the government's view, disclosure would
seriously undermine the effectiveness of the process, as
confidentiality is essential to it."
Computer Weekly will be publishing evidence in the next few
weeks to support the findings of the Information Commissioner - and
the Information Tribunal - that the results of Gateway reviews
should be published.
Even the IT staff, users and potential users of systems have no
automatic right at present to see the results of reviews at
present.
We believe that the Office of Government Commerce has wasted
public money, and is continuing to waste public money on its legal
fight to stop the reviews being published. The appeal also
indicates that the government is willing to prolong Whitehall’s
culture of secrecy.
Civil servants ordered to destroy Gateway reports >>
ID cards: 'openness would damage project reviews' >>
Reid announces rising ID card costs while Blair takes the
spotlight >>
Office of Government Commerce
>>
Public Accounts Committee >>
Work and Pensions Committee >>
Tony Collins'
IT projects blog >>
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