ABSTRACT
Freedom of Information, together with its (loosely) alternative formulations ‘open government’ and ‘Access to Information’ has made frequent appearances on the British government and parliamentary agendas of the past thirty years. For much of that time, however, there has been little serious debate about the meaning of these terms. The unstated assumption was that those in favour of greater access by the public to information held by the government knew in broad terms what they wanted and that precise definitions were not only unnecessary but possibly unhelpful. As Ann Rogers has noted, discussion of this issue has been conducted in terms of the prevailing liberal consensus which sees secrecy and democracy as two sides of the same coin. Thus ‘Governments require some things to be confidential while citizens require information about how they are governed’ (Rogers, 1997, p. 3). The debate has therefore focussed on the appropriate balance between these two sets of demands with the government slowly conceding ground in the face of increasing public awareness of both the limitations of closed government and the benefits to be derived from greater knowledge about the way that decisions are taken in government. What has not been discussed in this debate is the meaning of secrecy, its purpose in government or the related issue of privacy.
