Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND DEMOCRACY
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information, one which stresses that the information must be scrupulously and
disinterestedly collected and analysed. That is, statisticians must be both politically
neutral and profoundly committed to the professional values of precision,
scrupulous methodological practice, objectivity and a steadfast refusal to distort
or suppress evidence (Phillips, 1991). Crucially, these ‘custodians of facts’
(Phillips, 1988) must rate their guardianship above political partisanship and pressure
as well as above the pursuit of profit. They must also endorse the principle
of promptly and unconditionally releasing the information for which they are
responsible into the public domain. Sir Claus Moser (1980), one-time head of
the Government Statistical Services, articulated these beliefs in an address to the
Royal Statistical Society. Moser voiced a classic public service philosophy thus:
The government statistician commands a vast range of national information
and it is his duty to deploy this to the benefit of the entire community . . . he
must make readily available, with necessary guidance to sources, such information
compiled for and by Government as is not inhibited by secrecy
constraints . . . these are not peripheral duties. They deserve high priority.
The different user communities not only have a ‘right’ to information collected
and provided from public funds; it is in any case an essential part of
a democratic society and of open government that available information
should be widely circulated and, one hopes, used.
(Moser, 1980, p. 4)
Finally, because it has been regarded as an essential public service, the
dissemination of information has traditionally received a substantial subsidy – and
indeed was often entirely free from government departments and associated
agencies – to make publications affordable to the widest-possible cross-section
of the public. Particularly significant in this regard is the Stationery Office (TSO),
formerly Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO), which until 1980 was an ‘allied
service’ directly funded by Parliament with a brief to make widely available
government information. Founded in 1786, the Stationery Office is best-known
for its publication of parliamentary debates, reports and legislation and, until
recently, if TSO thought ‘a document was “in the public interest” it was sufficient
justification for its publication’ (Butcher, 1983, p. 17). What constitutes ‘the public
interest’ is of course contestable, but what is important to note here is that
the information, once its publication was agreed, was assumed to be worthy
of support so that anyone wanting to receive it could do so without serious
economic inhibition.
The suggestion here is not that government statistical services of themselves
constitute a public sphere. Rather it is that they are a foundational element of
any meaningful public sphere, and that principles such as statistical rectitude,
public service and ready public access to government information underpin that
supportive role. However, two trends in particular undermine this role of government
information services and, by extension, denude the public sphere itself. I
refer here, first, to the tendency towards treating information as a commodity
and, second, to a propensity for government – and politicians more generally –
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