Dave Hill reports on the complete lack of the promised new, tough transparency on the financial interests of the Mayor’s most senior appointment, Tim Parker, First Deputy Mayor.
His manifesto on accountability promised to "Introduce tough new rules for Mayoral advisers to ensure their interests are declared and in the open" (page 3) and "Strengthen the accountability of Mayoral advisers by putting a separate
register of interests online." (page 11). And on page 12 it says:"The current GLA staff code of conduct requires staff to register any financial interests. However, this register is not immediately accessible by the public. After the resignation of Lee Jasper over unethical behaviour and alleged misuse of public funds, it is clear that the system of declaring interests needs to be more open and transparent. Therefore, we will create a separate register of interests for advisers and require that this is open for public viewing at all times on the Mayor’s website."
The declaration Parker spoke of this morning is the one required under the existing code of conduct - nothing more. And unless some new and more demanding form of declaration is in the works, the only change from Livingstone’s administration is that when a mayor’s adviser completes the old declaration form it will appear on the website under his name.
Does Boris seriously expect us to swallow the idea that putting something on a web site (which in this instance will only say “None” anyway – see Dave’s post for more information) seriously amounts to full transparency?
Tags: accountability · advisers · transparency5 Comments
5 responses so far ↓
Boris is having a completely new london.gov.uk website built at a cost of £40 000. I wonder if Ken will be written out of history?
Helen, where have you heard that? Sounds like yet another complete waste of money, so it certainly sounds likely…
More on the new website on my blog
[...] to Helen for first alerting me to [...]
A transparency question from Darren Johnson for Mayor’s Question Time on 16 July:
“Transparency and openness in planning
Question No: 1294 / 2008
Darren Johnson
Why have none of the documents relating to planning applications referred to, or decided by, your office you since you became Mayor been placed on the GLA website, as was standard practice under your predecessor?”