Government hires legal experts to fight publication of ID card reviews
Tony Collins writes in Computer Weekly:
The government is to hire internal and external legal experts, including a Queen’s counsel, to try to block the publication of Gateway reviews of its ID cards programme – a scheme which ministers affirmed last week would go ahead at a cost of £5.4bn over 10 years.
The Office of Government Commerce (OGC), which is part of HM Treasury, will use the Treasury Solicitor’s Department, external legal experts and a QC to fight a decision by the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, that two Gateway reviews on ID cards can be published.
Gateway reviews are independent assessments of projects and programmes at various stages in their lifecycle. They are mandatory on high risk IT-related projects, including the ID cards programme.
The Gateway scheme was instigated and is run by the OGC, which has refused all requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the results of the reviews to be published.
The OGC refused initially to provide copies of the Gateway reviews to even the information commissioner. On 11 August 2005, representatives of the commissioner had to make a personal visit to the OGC’s offices to see the ID card Gateway reviews.
He concludes:
If the government gets its way, and Gateway reviews remain secret, parliament will continue to have no dependable means of receiving the information it needs to scrutinise adequately questions of value for money on major IT contracts.
October 14th, 2006 at 10:25
This country is getting more like a fascist dictatorship every day.What exactly are the Government trying so hard to keep a secret,is it,is to start the true cost of the cards and the register,is it the fact that the scheme is deep in the s**t,but they can,t or won,t admit the fact,and whatever happened to the report on the so called benefits of I.D cards,which the D.W.P were trying to prevent publication of.
To my mind the only way we are going to stop this idiotic scheme,is by direct action as this government won,t listen to any reasonable criticism,or entertain any dissent whatsoever.John Reid had better start building some more prisons,as public opinion is starting to turn rapidly against this stupid and unwanted scheme,the only people it will benefit are I.T. companies and nosy civil servants.