Computer Weekly called for more openness from government over
expensive and risky IT projects, at a
House of Lords Communications Committee investigating
government spin on Wednesday.
Executive editor Tony Collins
gave evidence and told the committee that press officers are
increasingly "aggressive and unhelpful", because of a culture
within departments resulting from the views of senior civil
servants on transparency and the media.
He said, "It's the culture of the organisation that's really
reflected in the way the press office behaves. For example, we have
a good relationship with the passport office because the top man
there wants open communication."
The Department of Health, which runs the
NHS National Programme for IT, came in for criticism from other
journalists. Nigel Hawkes, health editor at The Times, said,
"Relations with the press office are not particularly good. I would
not ring them to find out what is going on."
The control of information by government departments is now
greater than ever before, Collins said. He added that he had often
been surprised at the influence press officers can hold over senior
departmental officials.
He said departments need to be able to accept when IT projects
go wrong, instead of insisting there is steady progress right up
until the moment they are forced to abandon a project. This is
evident even in the minutes of board level meetings.
He said, "Until you have change in the culture from the top I
don't think we will see any improvement."
The committee is investigating whether the government's
reputation for secrecy and partial disclosure has improved since
the
Phillis Report, which made several recommendations. Several
journalists gave evidence, including BBC political editor Nick
Robinson and Adam Boulton, political editor at Sky News.