Open government

The Information Commissioner says that public bodies need to try harder:

"People are confident that more information will come into the public domain as a result and fewer believe public authorities can get round the act.

However people still remain to be convinced that Scottish public authorities are changing culture to become more open and accountable."

The real question is why we need an Information Commissioner in the first place. And the answer is that government is far too big. Instead of pretending that politicians and bureaucrats can somehow become "accountable", let's recognise that the whole state sector is unaccountable by its very nature. If we want accountability, turn things over to competitive suppliers serving paying customers who can take their business elsewhere. That's real accountability.