Glasnost grips Whitehall, at last

The Cabinet Office is sometimes described as the ‘thinking brain of government’. So it’s a pity then that so little thought is applied to making it an open one. With a Freedom of Information (FOI) team that is infamous for their excuses, the ministry is frequently ranked as one of Whitehall’s worst-performing departments for transparency. But it seems that the Cabinet Office might now have tested the patience of its long-suffering watchdog once too often.

Just before Christmas, the Information Commissioner handed down a decision notice in a case which neatly highlights the extent to which the Cabinet Office will go to avoid disclosing even the most trivial information. At the beginning of 2022, the Sunday Times reported that Boris Johnson’s then-chief of staff Dan Rosenfield had insisted on the installation of a custom-made wardrobe in his No. 10 office. There then followed a lengthy back-and-forth between hacks and mandarins to reveal the cost and make of this contentious furnishing.