CaRT removes information

DESPITE claims made by Canal & River Trust Chief Executive, Richard Parry, that he will make information available where he can, the Trust continues to be as secretive as ever.

One manifestation of this lack of openness is the publication of Board minutes under the Trust's Freedom of Information Act publication scheme.

102 redactions

Redaction is the censoring or obscuring of part of a text. Examination of the latest published minutes and associated papers (25th September 2014) reveals no less than 102 redactions with text being replaced by the words ‘Commercially confidential information removed' in red.

Minutes

Most of the published papers have redactions. Four papers each have over ten redactions. They are Minutes (21), Finance report (19), Chief executives report (14) and Engagement report (21).

Whilst it is understood that there may be good commercial reasons for redacting some information from Board meetings, it is difficult to believe that CaRT really need to do this over 100 times. Indeed, it would appear that some information redacted is not actually commercial in nature!

Next time

As CaRT is due to publish Board papers for its November meeting soon, perhaps it would like to consider reducing the amount of information redacted.

After all, the Trust needs to live up to the assurances it chief executive gives.