CONGRATULATIONS to the Oxford Mail for campaigning against any weakening of the Freedom Of Information Act.

You give two main reasons why Freedom of Information (FOI) is important, obtaining information which is in the public interest and accounting for how public money is spent.

Examples of information which would not have been made public without the act include, details about how the council chose the developer for the West Way development and lack of police enforcement of 20mph speed limits in Oxford.

How our money is spent should be fully transparent and accountable, but an FOI request was necessary before the Ambulance Service would reveal how much it had spent on hiring private ambulances.

Letters

Yet millions of pounds of public money are spent by a shadowy quango which is not subject to FOI requests because it is not a ‘public body’.

Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (OxLEP) spent £3.9billion of public money on local growth schemes between 2011 and 2015 as well as £5.3billion of European Funding between 2014 and 2020.

Yet it does not have to account to us, the public, for how it spends our money.

So please, as well as signing the petition on Hands off FOI at change.org/p/matthew-hancock-mp-don’t weaken-the-freedom-of-information-act, I am asking you to sign the petition to makes LEPs fully transparent at https://www.change.org/p/greg-clark-mp-the-secretary-of-state-for-communities-and-local-government-make-local-enterprise-partnerships-accountable-to-the-public.

Thank you for standing up for the precious liberties and freedoms we still enjoy in this country.

HAZEL DAWE

Treasurer,

Oxfordshire Green Party,

Bulan Road,

Oxford