Quelle surprise

I finally received a reply from Lincolnshire Police FOI officer asserting that their original decision was the correct one. You could have knocked me over with a feather. They are not (as yet) agreeable to sending me a copy of the Risk Register for the programme of work they have under way with G4S. (See my earlier post about this here.)

The upshot is that I have now referred the matter to the Information Commissioner and I await their adjudication on whether an FOIA exemption should be used to protect the commercial reputation of G4S (whatever reputation they have left..)

Or whether the FOIA should be deployed to protect the public from knowing the risks that Lincolnshire Police are running by partnering with G4S. Lincs police fear that if their publics should know the full story, they will lose confidence in their local police service and crime will go up as consequence. I think the opposite is true.

I hope that the Information Commissioner believes, as I do, that the people of Lincolnshire are made of sterner and wiser stuff. Indeed the patrician attitude that the use of this other exemption betrays is perhaps the most worrying.

What do you think?

So I urge you to watch this space...