HPC continues to duck its responsibilities - the misuse of the FOI Act

In December 2010, Dinah Rose QC argued that the HPC had unlawfully ducked critical questions about about whether psychotherapy and psychoanalysis should be regulated by statute. In his summing up Mr Justice Burton went on to criticise the misleading nature of HPC statements before allowing a a request for judicial review of the HPC. Although the general election a few months later changed the context so that the judicial review did not, in the end, proceed, the argument had been publicly made that the Government should not trust the word of the HPC.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, evidence of this laxity with language and responsibility continues at the HPC. Until the summer of 2010 it had been the open and clear policy that transcripts from its Fitness to Practice hearings were freely available to anyone who asked for them. There was only a short wait to ensure no private information was being transmitted in the documents before they were emailed out with no further questions to whoever asked for them. Then, for no apparent reason requests for transcripts were diverted via the central office and treated as Freedom of Information requests. Why?

After some dancing around (see my FOI request on whatdotheyknow.com for the final part of this tedious business), Louise Hart (Secretary to the Council at HPC) admitted that the change in policy was the result of advice given by the HPC lawyers. She declined to say what that advice was, or why it was sought, and as the HPC have no written policy on this, any attempts to discover the reasons for the change seem doomed to fail. However, Ms Hart did admit that there was no tangible difference in the HPC's practice of handing out the transcripts as a result of invoking this law.

If it made no difference, what was at stake? Why does the HPC invoke the FOI Act for information which was freely available? It seems at best a slightly daft use of a law that was designed, after all, to bring previously buried information out into the light of day.

One possible answer is that in the first 9 years of operation, it was clear that responsibility for circulating this information in the public domain belonged to the HPC, but now it might be argued that responsibility belonged to the person requesting the papers. The HPC appears to have simply made use of the law (a law invented for quite other reasons) to duck their own responsibility.

It seems a small point but it once more reveals something worrying about the way the HPC conducts itself. And let's not forget, this is an organisation that claims to be able to hold other people to account for their moral and professional behaviour. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?