ERI information ruling shows PFI is bad news for
public knowledge
by Tom Waterson, Chair of UNISON Lothian Health
Branch, and Chair of the union's Scottish Health Group
The welcome decision by Kevin Dunion, the Scottish
Information Commissioner (SIC), to order NHS Lothian to release
the whole of the PFI contract for Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary (ERI),
to May Docherty, one of UNISON's stewards is a highly significant
one, both for the ERI itself, and for the future of similar contracts
elsewhere in Scotland.
It also highlights what happens to information about
our services when the private sector gets its hands on them, and
- as the SIC himself says - outlines the need at least, for contractors
and others to be covered by the Freedom of Information Act.
The health board's excuse for not revealing any contract
details, was simply that the contractor - Consort Healthcare - wouldn't
allow them to, and had included a clause in the contract to that
effect.
The scathing findings of the SIC- that the health
board had made no arguments why the contract (or parts of it) should
remain secret - were in line with the Government's own advice that
public authorities should not sign contracts with such clauses in
them.
Despite this, in a recent round of similar FOI requests,
UNISON came across a number of other authorities who also used this
clause as a reason not to release contractual information. They
are also being appealed. But clearly many private contractors -
such as Consort - do not want the public to know what their contracts
cost.
UNISON has long suspected this, and indeed we think
that there may well be other financial implications in the ERI,
which are yet to be revealed.
Hopefully, this ruling will be the first step to close
this 'catch-all, get-out clause' for contractors. Another worrying
point, is that NHS Lothian was unaware that the contract it had
identified as relating to this substantial PFI project omitted over
5,000 pages of relevant information. That's about two thirds of
the contract!
Again, UNISON's own enquiries show that this is not
an isolated incident, contractual information seems to have an annoying
habit of going missing.
In the most extreme example, neither Scottish Water,
nor the Scottish Government, can find the Final Business Cases (the
details of the costs and delivery) for NINE water PFI contracts
- including that for Seafield where millions of tons of untreated
sewage was pumped directly into the Forth earlier this year! So
simply to rely on this ruling - important though it is - will not
resolve the problems of secrecy and lack of information when public
services are delivered by non-public organisations.
Other clauses in the legislation can and do allow
'commercially confidential' information to be withheld. Apart from
contractors and other private sector providers, organisations such
as housing associations, and leisure trusts are commonly not covered
by FOI legislation - leading to ridiculous anomalies where the tenants
of Glasgow and the leisure users of North Ayrshire cannot use FoI,
whereas in neighbouring councils where services are provided in-house,
the public can access information.
The SIC is right to call for such bodies to be covered.
Worryingly, our new Government appears not to be listening, yet
the UK Government is consulting on extending FOI down south to private
companies delivering public contracts.
UNISON has always said, that the bottom line is that
public services - whether Edinburgh's hospital, or Glasgow's housing,
or Scotland's water - should be provided by the public sector, so
they are publicly accountable for our money that they spend. Where
that is not happening, at least these non-public bodies should be
made to tell us where our money is going, and what services they
are providing for it!
See
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1743682007
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