Scotland's information chief gives his verdict on SNP public sector reforms: 'Don't'

Scotland’s top information chief has warned the Scottish government against its sweeping public sector reforms, as it could cause a decade of “unintended consequences”. Information Commissioner David Hamilton also said the FOI system will fail and Scots will lose their rights if his department is not properly funded in next month’s SNP budget. John Swinney is proposing major reforms of the public sector in a bid to plug a £5 billion black hole in the public finances, including completely overhauling local government and cutting the number of mainland NHS boards to just two.

However, when asked for his thoughts on the proposed reforms by Holyrood’s standards committee, Mr Hamilton said: “Don’t - I think one thing that concerns me with public sector reforms is the unintended consequences. “I lived as a senior police officer when it came together to one force [Police Scotland]. I saw it and I know the challenges and the benefits. “One of the challenges is when you take organisations with different records and then pull them together, it will take a decade to amalgamate it.

Police Scotland only recently got a single crime system, and you would be multiplying it by 20 for the scale of these public sector reforms, probably more. Subscribe to The Steamie morning politics newsletter “It is enormous. People will be frustrated they can’t find things and they will hit cost exemptions faster. There are huge implications for people’s rights.” However he said a combined public service information portal “would be the dream” as it would allow people to search through public information in one place without resorting to “data dumping” or questioning the information’s authenticity.

Mr Hamilton was also asked what would happen if the information commission’s budget is not increased. This comes after he told the committee his department’s workload has increased by an “unprecedented” 83 per cent in one year, putting his staff under “enormous pressure”. Mr Hamilton said this means staff are often having to go without their holiday entitlement and are having to work longer hours than other civil servants to get the work done.

This is partly down to people’s awareness of FOI legislation increasing from 88 per cent to 93 per cent thanks to high profile cases involving the Scottish Government and NHS Fife, as well as the boom in AI. Mr Hamilton said that while most AI-generated requests are easily spotted and handed back to the applicant, it has seen “unreasonable” applicants, including one who submitted 600 separate FOI requests to public organisations across the country.

He said: “The system will fail if we are not properly resourced. “Our budget is half of a 10,000th of a per cent of the consolidated budget and we get a lot of value for money and rights, but if we can’t keep up that will all fall apart. “This is an area where we are making a big difference and making things better for people. “I am acutely aware of the financial pressures, but I’m also aware of the financial waste, so we need to make the case that in a complicated environment, not getting what we need is a grim situation in terms of the lack of rights people will get.”