Cabinet Secretary urged to investigate DfE email allegations
Joe Lepper
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell is being called on to launch an investigation into the latest scandal to rock the Department for Education (DfE).
Shadow education secretary Andy Burnham has written to O’Donnell, the government’s most senior civil servant, to investigate allegations that private email accounts are being used in the DfE to get around Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests.
An article in the Financial Times quotes an email from Education Secretary Michael Gove’s adviser Dominic Cummings that he will not answer emails to his official DfE account, only those sent to his Gmail account.
The article added that the DfE will not release information using private email accounts when FOI requests are made.
In a letter to O’Donnell, Burnham said: "The suggestion that the Education Secretary has created his own private and political network, in parallel to the civil service, to carry out government business is very serious.
"The allegations that private email accounts are being used to avoid Freedom of Information requests reduces confidence in open and transparent government.
"To retain confidence in good public administration, I would be very grateful if you could investigate the way in which the department has handled Freedom of Information requests and particularly whether they followed established good practice and were compliant with the law in properly disclosing all relevant information."
The Information Commissioner is also concerned about the allegations surrounding the DfE’s handling of FOI requests, but has not launched an official investigation.
A spokesman for the commissioner said: "The Information Commissioner has written to the permanent secretary at the DfE to raise concerns about the department’s handling of Freedom of Information requests. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage."
A DfE spokesman said that the email quoted by the Financial Times has been shown in full to the permanent secretary at the DfE.
He said: "It was sent to Conservative Party officials asking them not to use his official email account. Mr Cummings' email was not to civil servants and concerned the Conservative Party spring conference 2011 – not government business. The code of conduct explicitly says that ‘special advisers should not use official resources for party political activity’."
He confirmed that private email accounts do not fall within the FOI Act and are not searchable by civil servants.
This is the second scandal at the DfE in recent months. Last month The Guardian published a leaked email sent by Cummings, who was a strategist for the Conservative Party at the time, suggesting pressure was put on civil servants to "give cash without delay" to the charity New Schools Network as part of the free schools programme.
A DfE spokesman told CYP Now last month that the allocation of funding to the New Schools Network was "in line with procurement rules".
An article in the Financial Times quotes an email from Education Secretary Michael Gove’s adviser Dominic Cummings that he will not answer emails to his official DfE account, only those sent to his Gmail account.
The article added that the DfE will not release information using private email accounts when FOI requests are made.
In a letter to O’Donnell, Burnham said: "The suggestion that the Education Secretary has created his own private and political network, in parallel to the civil service, to carry out government business is very serious.
"The allegations that private email accounts are being used to avoid Freedom of Information requests reduces confidence in open and transparent government.
"To retain confidence in good public administration, I would be very grateful if you could investigate the way in which the department has handled Freedom of Information requests and particularly whether they followed established good practice and were compliant with the law in properly disclosing all relevant information."
The Information Commissioner is also concerned about the allegations surrounding the DfE’s handling of FOI requests, but has not launched an official investigation.
A spokesman for the commissioner said: "The Information Commissioner has written to the permanent secretary at the DfE to raise concerns about the department’s handling of Freedom of Information requests. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage."
A DfE spokesman said that the email quoted by the Financial Times has been shown in full to the permanent secretary at the DfE.
He said: "It was sent to Conservative Party officials asking them not to use his official email account. Mr Cummings' email was not to civil servants and concerned the Conservative Party spring conference 2011 – not government business. The code of conduct explicitly says that ‘special advisers should not use official resources for party political activity’."
He confirmed that private email accounts do not fall within the FOI Act and are not searchable by civil servants.
This is the second scandal at the DfE in recent months. Last month The Guardian published a leaked email sent by Cummings, who was a strategist for the Conservative Party at the time, suggesting pressure was put on civil servants to "give cash without delay" to the charity New Schools Network as part of the free schools programme.
A DfE spokesman told CYP Now last month that the allocation of funding to the New Schools Network was "in line with procurement rules".