The information commissioner, Christopher Graham, and Michael Gove have clashed over the public’s right to grasp the names, places and non secular affiliation, if any, of your complete groups who’ve applied to sign up for the government’s controversial free schools programme.
The education secretary perceived to suggest that Graham was effectively helping opponents of the taxpayer-funded schools, that are independent of local authorities, to intimidate applicants – prompting Graham to retort that the arguments of Gove’s department in resisting public disclosure “clearly did not convince”.
The steely exchange came as Gove reluctantly released details of 517 applications made for the 1st three waves of free schools after losing a tribunal ruling last month. Announcing he would now not challenge the commissioner’s decision, Gove claimed parents and teachers looking to join the government’s programme were vilified by opponents or even lost their jobs, even without full details of applications.
His department had beforehand fought rulings by Graham on applications from the British Humanist Association (BHA), and appealed to a tribunal at the issue “because we would have liked to offer protection to public-spirited volunteers from intimidation”.
He said ministers had heard of instances where teachers have been hounded out in their existing schools by supporting an application and one proposer had told them of a death threat.
Gove said his programme helped people “who want something better for his or her children and community”. He ended his hostile concession by saying: “i’d defend, to the death, definitely the right of anyone to oppose government policy. i don’t think, however, that it’s right to facilitate the targeted intimidation of brave people performing on noble motives.”
Graham wrote back: “While I note your strongly held views, strongly expressed, i can only observe that both the commissioner and the tribunal have taken careful account of all relevant factors in arriving at a balanced judgment as to where the general public interest lies. Your department’s arguments clearly didn’t convince. I note that you simply chose to not exercise your right of further entice the higher tribunal.”
Graham added that he did “not for a moment” accept that publication facilitated intimidation. “i’ll join you in defending the fitting of anyone to oppose (or support) government policy. But i can also defend the operation of the liberty of data Act within the public interest.”
Graham’s office recently put Gove’s department on a different monitoring list since it was among public organisations dragging its heels in responding to freedom of data requests.
Richy Thompson, faith schools campaigner on the BHA, said: “We believe that the former loss of transparency during this area represented a democratic deficit, with the general public being unable to understand who was applying to establish schools with state funds until after those schools have already been backed by the federal government to open. Hopefully, that needs to now change.”
