What are we/they hiding?

A recent enquiry by Charity News Alert to the Office of the Third Sector to ask about how their core funding to 11 national infrastructure bodies in the third sector is going has been rejected on grounds that ‘…it would do more harm than good to make that information public…’!!

But surely this decision only fuels speculation that things must be going very badly, or else why would they not want to be open and transparent? After all, all front line groups are expected to be forthcoming with information about their performance – good and bad, so why is the government and the sector’s representative and infrastructure bodies (who lead these calls for greater transparency) apparently exempt themselves?

By not revealing anything, we assume the worse – that up to £26m of government money is being squandered, and that there are gross inefficiencies amongst the ‘great and the good’ in our sector. Even if there is bad news to tell, surely better to be open and explain how its being addressed and learnt from rather than hiding behind the veil of ‘small print’ clauses in the Freedom of Information Act?

links: http://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-are-wethey-hiding.html 

http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=3159&pg=15&cat=58