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SO sensitive were Cabinet Office mandarins about disclosing rampant junketing across Whitehall over recent years that when the Eye waged an ultimately successful battle to unearth the details, they orchestrated a cover-up that stretched to deliberately breaking their own freedom of information laws.

Only now, following the intervention of the Information Commissioner, can some details of this cover-up be revealed.

Back in September 2007, the Eye made FoI requests to all Whitehall departments for details of hospitality received by their top officials from April 2004. Blind panic appears to have ensued as the “clearing house” for requests in the Cabinet Office put out advice to all departments that the requests should be refused.

A deceitful and arguably illegal ploy
For schmoozing between 2004 and 2006, “departments should cite the cost threshold” (an exemption from disclosure if it would take more than 3.5 days to find the information). Since departments are required by the civil service code to keep registers of hospitality and the Cabinet Office could not foresee departments’ time costs, this was always a deceitful and arguably illegal ploy.

It duly hit a snag when an official in the Department for Work and Pensions reported an official in his bosses’ private office having “collected this [information] from hospitality logs where they exist without exceeding the disspropriate (sic) cost limit. I therefore cannot see how we can cite this exemption,” even though, said the official, “I am sure that [redacted name] would not want to break ranks.” All other departments simply said what the Cabinet Office had told them to, almost certainly untruthfully.

There then seem to have been attempts to persuade officials in the DWP to relent and tell a porkie, a frustrated internal Cabinet Office email reporting the DWP official as “adamant that he won’t say disproportionate cost as he’s looked into it”. A Yes Minister-style compromise was eventually agreed: the response to Private Eye would simply ignore the excuse – but not provide the information anyway.

A strategy of deception
A letter from the DWP duly arrived on 29 November 2007 saying that information for 2007 would be published the following year (in the event it took even longer). No mention was made of details for 2004-06. The department had thus knowingly blocked the release of information it knew it could disclose – on the face of it, an offence under the freedom of information act. Only after the Eye repeatedly complained and recounted to the Information Commissioner what were then strong suspicions of an orchestrated cover-up did any information finally emerge.

More alarmingly, the strategy of deception appears to have been hatched at the highest level. One of the Cabinet Office emails tells the DWP that its response “will need to be cleared with your Permsec” (the permanent secretary in charge of the department, Leigh Lewis).

‘Openness and transparency’
It was all part of a laughable ploy to start releasing hospitality information with a positive spin. When a full list of hospitality for 2007 was eventually published in February 2009, the Cabinet Office claimed it reflected its “commitment to openness and transparency”. Among the thousands of junkets from companies with much reason to schmooze influential mandarins was a trip to the opera courtesy of BP for cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell.

When the Eye first asked O’Donnell’s department for its communications with other departments, the information was refused as it would inhibit “free and frank” advice in government. After three years the Information Commissioner has forced it to admit this was nonsense and hand over the incriminating emails. Whether the commissioner will take action against the dishonest perversion of the freedom of information process by officials simultaneously trumpeting “openness and transparency” remains to be seen.

Commended: Lambeth Labour councillor Mark Bennett, who sparked a ruckus at a charity event after tweeting his objection to the presence of a hack from the “South London Pimp” as he wittily calls the Sarf London Press. The hack, Greg Truscott, responded by calling Bennett, who is gay, a “batty boy” and ended up with a police caution after further words and shoves were exchanged.

Runner-up: Birmingham city councillor Gareth Compton, who had his collar felt by Knacker after posting an amusing tweet suggesting that irritating Indie columnist Yasmin Alibhai- Brown should be stoned to death.

Winner: East Riding council’s £85,000-a-year head of “policy and strategic partnerships”, Ann Woodward, who shared her thoughts about work with Facebook friends, not realising that her privacy controls were set so that any old Tom, Dick or Eye hack could read them: “Another day at the cesspit... See what shit they can throw at me,” etc, etc.

COKE FIEND OF THE YEAR
Glasgow city council leader Steven Purnell, once tipped as a future Scottish first minister, resigned for “health reasons” before admitting to an alcohol problem and having snorted cocaine.

SURVIVOR OF THE YEAR
Former Tower Hamlets council leader Lutfur Rahman, comprehensively kippered for his links to Islamic extremists by Channel 4’s Dispatches in February (first reported in the Eye in 2008), lost the leadership after the May elections but ended up becoming the borough’s first elected mayor as an independent in October, mainly thanks to the Labour party’s incompetent attempts to stop him. The borough’s Labour group leadership, meanwhile, passed to Rotten Boroughs stalwart Helal Abbas, a busted flush if ever there was one – and winner of the Dead Duck of the Year award.

DENIAL OF THE YEAR
Nottingham city council communications supremo Stephen Barker scathingly dismissed an Eye story about a leak in the roof of the city’s new multi-million pound gallery, yards away from David Hockney’s painting A Bigger Splash. Then admitted there was a leak, after the Eye produced a photo of a bucket collecting rainwater.

VIP TRAVELLER OF THE YEAR
In the current financial climate, it is vital that councillors and senior officers travel the world in search of money- saving ideas.
Highly commended: Kensington & Chelsea council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for planning, Daniel Moylan, who spends much of his time at his second home in Thailand.
Runner-up: Suffolk chief executive “Arndrea” Hill, charged with slashing £300m from the council’s budget, went twice to the US courtesy of BT and stayed in top hotels in Boston and San Francisco. BT could afford to foot the bill, having already extracted more than £420m from Suffolk in a disastrous outsourced IT contract.
Winner: Birmingham’s “business transformation director” Glyn Evans, who flew 12,000 miles to New Zealand to deliver a 35-minute speech at a luxury resort about the transformational triumphs wrought in Brum by the council’s £600m partnership with Crapita.

FACT-FINDING MISSION OF THE YEAR
Cornwall council dispatched members to a lap-dancing club “to find out how these businesses operate”.

LAWYER OF THE YEAR
Runner-up: Hackney’s Graham White, who sent a pompous letter to a small community newspaper, the Hackney Citizen, threatening a punitive claim for invasion- of-privacy costs after the paper put online an embarrassing recording of a council spokeswoman misleadingly telling callers that the Conservative standing in the council’s mayoral election, Andrew Boff, was not, in fact, a candidate. Earlier the council had omitted Boff’s election address from the official booklet containing all the candidates’ statements.
Winner: Timothy Straker QC, who was paid £10,435.70 by East Riding council for a report exonerating council leader Stephen “absolute propriety” Parnaby of any wrongdoing after the Eye reported on his links to a PR man who had a knack of winning contracts which were not put out to tender.

PANTS ON FIRE AWARD
East Riding press officer Jonathan Howell, who was asked five times by the Eye in January, February and March whether the council had received Straker’s bill (see above). He always said they hadn’t. In April he admitted they had had it since 20 January. Lying toad!

 

STEWARDSHIP OF NATURE AWARD
To Hampshire county council, which for the third year in a row mowed a road verge that is home to one of Britain’s rarest orchids before the seed had set, even though the council had promised never, ever, to do it again.

RETIREE OF THE YEAR
Nick Johnson, who retired as chief exec of the London borough of Bexley on grounds of ill health in 2007, aged 54, comforted by a £50,000 pension – to which he was entitled immediately on the understanding that he was too sick to work in local government again. In June 2010 he admitted he had been working full time for Hammersmith & Fulham council and its housing management provider, H&F Homes. He was paid £528,000 from these sources between 2008 and 2010.

PREVENTING EXTREMISM AWARD
“Community groups” in Waltham Forest were handed £150,000 under the Labour government’s “Prevent Agenda” in the hope of steering young Muslims away from extremism. More than £4,000, it turned out, was spent on dinners at a banqueting suite in Leytonstone and ice creams all round at a “young Muslim leaders” conference. Success!

TOADIES OF THE YEAR
Senior staff at Newham town hall, who suggested having T-shirts made with “64,748” printed on the front – the number of votes won in May by elected Labour mayor Sir Robin Wales, a man whose head is quite big enough already.

PAYOFF OF THE YEAR
Despite some strong competition, there could only be one winner. Let’s hear it for Sue Lockwood, former £123,000-a-year “director of corporate resources” at East Riding council, where the cabinet approved an extra £364,205 payment into her pension pot so she could take early retirement in style – just a year after receiving a £12,000 rise to ensure her “loyalty”.

BLUE-SKY THINKERS OF THE YEAR
North Tyneside council, about to sack hundreds of staff, employed an “ethics and spirituality consultant” on £45,000 a year.

THE SIR GEOFFREY BOYCOTT DEAD BAT AWARD
To Anglesey council’s “interim managing director” David Bowles, who repeatedly refused to tell the Today programme how much he earned. All he would say was “I’m actually employed by a private company”. Actually, he gets £1 from the council... which pays Solace Enterprises Ltd £275,000 for his services.

ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR INITIATIVE
Hammersmith & Fulham council’s anti-graffiti team carefully removed spray-painted marks left by highways department workmen indicating where to place new signs for a parking scheme, because they thought “NSP” was a local yob’s “tag”, rather than standing for “new sign post”.

YOUTUBE STAR OF THE YEAR
Isle of Wight council leader David Pugh is runner- up for his expletive-splattered, tired and emotional argument with the local Tory MP’s fiancée outside a Cowes charity event, helpfully recorded on a passer-by’s mobile.
The winner, for making a complete and utter prat of himself, has to be Sheffield’s Lib Dem council leader Paul Scriven, who, on a promotional video for a luxury hotel, murdered Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” while playing a weary businessmen being pampered by staff after his “hectic day”. Perfectly excruciating.