The Times - UK (2022-06-13)

the times | Monday June 13 2022 2GM 3

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ment decision-making for the national

archives or official reviews.

Last July Elizabeth Denham, who

was information commissioner at the

time, wrote in her announcement of the

investigation: “My worry is that infor-

mation in private email accounts or

messaging services is forgotten, over-

looked, autodeleted or otherwise not

available when a freedom of informa-

tion request is later made.”

The government has come under

growing pressure over its approach to

transparency. In April MPs said the

Cabinet Office was guilty of a “substan-

dard” handling of requests under free-

dom of information (FoI) laws.

The parliamentary inquiry had been

opened after reports into the depart-

ment’s secretive “clearing house” team,

which screens information requests

across central government, found that

personal details of journalists who

made requests were being shared

between departments.

John Edwards, who succeeded Den-

ham as information commissioner, has

come under pressure to make FoI more

of a priority for his agency. Edwards has

committed himself to clearing the

backlog of transparency complaints

against public organisations and is

hiring more staff.

However, the backlog is so large that

those who want to challenge a govern-

ment decision not to release documents

have to wait nine months for a case to

begin to be investigated, often after a

drawn-out internal process. This back-

log built up after the government cut

the agency’s transparency enforcement

budget in real terms over several years.

In practice this backlog makes it

harder to obtain information in cases in

which a public organisation would

rather not release it, because it can

gamble that the person making the re-

quest will either give up in the face of

delays, or that the ICO will not be able

to enforce the release while the infor-

mation is still relevant to public debate.

One Times appeal to the ICO about

Cabinet Office pandemic correspond-

ence has not been concluded 26

months after the request was filed.

The Department of Health and

Social Care said: “We are committed to

transparency and to using information

effectively and securely. We are appeal-

ing the judgment because we believe

the information being held is exempt

from release. Ministers had no role in

the decision to appeal.”

Hancock’s office said: “He’s not heard

of this issue before today but personally

would be entirely relaxed about it being

released. He understands that the

content is very dull.”

that whereas there are many men in

their sixties, seventies and eighties on

these pop stations there are hardly any

women.”

The BBC said: “All radio schedules

evolve over time and after 16 episodes

of Liz Kershaw’s Legends In Their Own

Lunchtime in a year, we wanted to

explore other music stories. There

were no other factors

involved in the decision

and we are proud to

have a diverse range of

presenters on TV and

radio.”

Kershaw presented a

BBC Radio 2 series on

the biggest-selling musi-

cal acts of the Queen’s

reign as part of its Platinum

Jubilee celebrations.

In April Tim Davie, the

director-general, announced

the end of the “lurch to youth”

that had been announced by

his predecessor, Lord Hall of

Birkenhead. He pointed out

that the average age of BBC

and BBC2 viewers was over 60.

The BBC faces renewed claims of age-

ism and sexism after one of its best-

known presenters claimed that she was

sacked because the station does not

want women over 60.

Liz Kershaw, 63, has been replaced on

her Saturday afternoon Radio 6 show

by Jamz Supernova, who is 31.

Kershaw tweeted: “I got sacked from

@BBC6Music because they don’t want

women over 60.”

She said her Sunday afternoon series

Legends In Their Own Lunchtime was

also “not wanted”.

Kershaw, who has worked for the

BBC for 35 years, was responding to a

campaign calling for a parliamentary

debate on the way “women are being

erased from public services and institu-

tions”.

The BBC has faced a series of allega-

tions of ageism. Miriam O’Reilly, who

was 53 at the time, won a case for age

discrimination after being dropped

from BBC1’s Countryfile in 2011.

Mark Thompson acknowledged in

2012, when he was director-general of

Kershaw: BBC sacked me for being over 60

the broadcaster, that there were “mani-

festly too few older women broadcast-

ing on the BBC”.

Sue Barker, 66, was replaced as a host

of BBC1’s A Question of Sport after 24

years in 2020 in a shake-up that in-

volved the departure of team captains

Matt Dawson, 49, and Phil Tufnell, 56.

The Times columnist Libby

Purves, 72, who presented Radio 4’s

Midweek from the 1980s until 2017,

wrote in the Radio Times in 2020

that there were double standards

for female presenters, who

were more likely to be judged

by their looks.

Kershaw told The Mail on

Sunday: “I don’t want it to be

all about me because I think

it’s a bigger issue than that.

At the same time, I don’t

think it’s a job for life and

you do have to make room

for new people. But it just

seems quite remarkable

David Brown

Stars get behind campaign

to block Channel 4 sell-off

A campaign to stop the privatisation of
Channel 4 has gathered support from
celebrities and production companies.
The Derry Girls star Siobhan
McSweeney and Armando Iannucci,
creator of The Thick of It, are among
those backing the Channel 4 Ain’t
Broke campaign. It brings together 27
production businesses from across the
country, alongside supporters such as
the team behind the new comedy Big
Boys as well as the Archbishop of York,
Bishop of Ripon and Bishop of Leeds.
The campaign points to evidence
which it says shows that the channel is
in good financial health and is helping
the levelling-up agenda. It says that as a
publicly owned broadcaster, funded by
advertising, Channel 4 does not cost
the taxpayer a penny but returned a
profit of £74 million last year and con-
tributed £1 billion to the economy.
McSweeney said: “Channel 4 is a
huge success story and Derry Girls
wouldn’t have happened without it: it’s
something to be proud of not some-

thing to destroy. Right now Channel 4 is

boosting the economy and throwing

open the door for a new generation of

writers, performers, producers and cre-

ative thinkers across the country.”

Mark Williams, from the creative

agency Fin Studios, said: “Channel 4 is

the levelling-up broadcaster. It sup-

ports tons of small businesses like ours

all around the country. It gives people a

way to get a foot in the door into the in-

dustry, whatever their background.”

The initiative is being co-ordinated

by the campaign group We Own It.

The Department for Digital Culture,

Media and Sport said: “The govern-

ment, as the ultimate owner of Channel

4, has made the decision to sell. It is our

job to take a long-term view on how to

best secure the most successful future

for the broadcaster and we are clear

that a change of ownership is necessary

to give Channel 4 the tools to innovate

and grow at pace in a rapidly changing

media landscape, without the con-

straints of public ownership.”

Liz Kershaw said that men in

their sixties and over, but not

women, were on pop stations

Matt Hancock breached social-distancing guidance when he kissed and fondled

his lover Gina Coladangelo, whom he had appointed as a £15,000-a-year adviser

The government is taking its own trans-
parency regulator to court at the tax-
payers’ expense to try to block the
release of messages between Matt
Hancock and his adviser and lover Gina
Coladangelo.
The information
commissioner ruled
in April that the De-
partment of Health
and Social Care had
been wrong to with-
hold some emails
between the pair,
and ordered their re-
lease after a request
from The Times.
Hancock, 43, the
MP for West Suffolk,
resigned as a minister
last June after a
CCTV video leaked to
The Sun revealed him
kissing and fondling
Coladangelo, 44, in his
office in London the
previous month, in
breach of social-
distancing guidance.
He had appointed the
PR executive, whom he had known
since their time together at the Uni-
versity of Oxford, to a £15,000-a-year

Public picks up

bill in fight to

keep Hancock

emails secret

A battle to release the

former minister’s

correspondence is going

to the courts, writes

George Greenwood

post as a non-executive director of the

department. Coladangelo also resigned

after the story emerged.

The department’s legal action to

attempt to cover up the correspond-

ence is likely to cost the taxpayer thou-

sands of pounds. Past cases brought by

the Department for Health and Social

Care against the Information Commis-

sioner’s Office (ICO) to block disclosure

have cost between £3,000 and £130,000,

according to records obtained by the

OpenDemocracy website.

Last June The Times requested a copy

of all correspond-

ence between the

pair relating to

government busi-

ness, either via

their departmen-

tal or private

email accounts.

The ICO began

an investigation

into Hancock’s

use of private

email last year

after it was re-

vealed by The

Sunday Times

that he had re-

peatedly used it

for government

business. The

investigation

continues.

Use of private

email by minis-

ters for govern-

ment matters is controversial because it

makes it less likely that records will be

retrieved in response to transparency

requests or retained to explain govern-

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