Cloaked in secrecy

SECRECY has become a default setting for far too many public bodies.

some officials appear to have forgotten who pays their wages – and are determined to shut out the voters who put them in their jobs.

Perthshire councillors agreed to hold scrutiny panels in private, ironically (and nonsensically) to make the process ‘more open’. supposedly private sessions allow ‘more time and flexibility’.

But quite how keeping discussions out of the public eye makes important local government decisions ‘more open’ is anyone’s guess. The decision does raise an important question, though: what have they got to hide?

It’s just the latest example of secret scotland in action – a tendency to exclude the public at every turn, with no regard for basic democratic standards.