It always seems obvious to the Salford Star that anything related to public money should not be kept secret from the public. At the end of the day, it's the community's money.
So why has Salford Star had to battle Salford City Council for over a year to prise basic information from the public authority? Perhaps the new `all open, all transparent' City Mayor, Paul Dennett, should be asked for an explanation...
It was in March 2015 that the Salford Star made two requests under the Freedom of Information Act to try and find details of the secret Development Trust Account (DTA), a fund of money, similar to Section 106 payments, where developers have to pay for things like public realm, roads and community spaces if they build apartments, offices, shops etc.
The whole area along Chapel Street and what has been re-branded New Bailey was handed over to the English Cities Fund, or ECf, to develop. This is a part public body made up of Muse Developments, Legal and General, and the Government's Home and Communities Agency.
In 2009, Salford Council approved a Salford Central Development Framework which stipulated that planning fees for each scheme were to be paid into the Development Trust Account, which was operated, Salford Council stated, "through a steering group comprising the City Council and the applicant"...ie ECf itself.
The concern was that the ECf was using this DTA money to basically fund itself, rather than that money going back to the community. So the Salford Star asked to see all correspondence between Salford City Council, the ECf and any other partners re the Development Trust Account.
We also asked for details of all `payments made into the account [with source] and payments gone out of the account with items explained'.
Salford Council basically stuck two fingers up, decided that the requests wouldn't be dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act but under environmental regulations, or EIR, and refused both, arguing that the first was `manifestly unreasonable' and that the second request hindered `commercial confidentiality', or regulation 12(5)(e).
On the second request, the Information Commissioner ruled that the "Council cannot rely on it [commercial confidentiality] to refuse the request and so must provide a new response to the complainant....without refusing it under regulation 12(5)(e)."
On the first request to provide all correspondence, the Commissioner agreed with the Council that it was `manifestly unreasonable', as there were 13,796 e-mails and 15 volumes of paper files "the task would be burdensome given the volume of potentially relevant information".
However, she ordered the Council to "Provide assistance to the complainant on how to reduce the scope of his request so that it is no longer manifestly unreasonable", like they are supposed to do.
The Council had argued that even if it had helped to refine the information requested it still wouldn't release it, as the `commercial confidentiality' clause would apply. The response was that "The Commissioner does not agree that this is true".
The Information Commissioner concluded that "The public authority must take these steps within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court..."
For the Salford Star, the case is simple. The Star believes that the public has the right to know whether, firstly, developers are paying reasonable fees to build huge hotels, car parks, office blocks and unaffordable apartment blocks and secondly, how that money is being spent.
That Salford City Council has been fighting this for over a year speaks volumes and will leave the community thinking `What have they got to hide?'
Hopefully, within 35 days from last Friday, the Salford Star might be able to shed some light on the Development Trust Account...
* See also previous Salford Star article: Salford Council Payments Secrecy in Huge Regeneration Scheme click here
See also a massive article on the ECf secrecy in print issue 10 click here for the electronic version
Update: 18th October - see also Transparency Dead In Salford As Public Bodies Refuse to be Held to Account - click here
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