Demand Transparency : L7

Essence of the Work

To press for exposure of all relevant facts, especially those where disclosure is being avoided and where evidence is hidden or kept private based on legal or customary rights or on claims to serve the public good.

Transparency is crucial for public confidence in their institutions. That is why the results of enforcing transparency are publicized.

Governments, public agencies and firms keep details of their activities secret for a variety of reasons. The usual claims are protection of privacy, personal or commercial confidentiality, national security and even the public interest. In practice, common reasons are less savoury: politicians and governments may wish to avoid embarrassment or revelations of incompetent or corrupt practices; public agencies do not want incompetent, unhelpful or abusive behaviours of their members to be disclosed; firms also wish to keep dishonest, unethical exploitative or callous behaviour out of the public eye.

This secrecy impedes both the diagnosis of institutional problems and an appreciation of how to the institution can develop in a sensible way.

Demands for transparency is a response available to all. However, the influence of the demand is dependent on the power of the spokesperson: a minister will have more impact than a member of parliament, who will have more impact than an aggrieved member of the public.

Informal demands may have a prompt effect in some instances e.g. when the facts are far less damaging than they are believed to be, or when the entity on the receiving end judges there is more to be lost by persisting with secrecy.

However, informal demands often bounce off corporate and governmental walls. Even parliamentary inquiry that should be able to get information from governments commonly fails. Usually the greater the significance and vulnerability, the more defensively secretive the government. See the Scott Report in the UK.

Freedom of information laws, though common in liberal democracies, often seem to be impotent when the government prefers to hide matters. Obstructions are raised in terms of time and cost, or there is loss of documents or recordings in fires or during a relocation or refurbshment, or by some freak accident &c. Even when material is provided, large chunks, possibly the bulk, is redacted to be unreadable. Similar problems occur with regulatory authorities which often either lack the powers to get information or are reluctant to use them.

Examples: from UK & Australia

Police Use of Force in Australia

Police tasered a frail 95 year old demented lady (5'2", 43kg) who needed a walking frame claiming she was a grave threat to their safety because she had a knife in her hand. She fell to the ground, cracked her skull and subsequently died. The police initially gave a vague report referring to "injuries during an interaction". When a shocked public learned about what actually happened, many wanted to see a video of the event captured on a body camera. The police are not releasing the video claiming powers under the Surveillance Act and the need for an internal investigation into the incident. There is an official Law Enforcement Conduct Commission as a monitor that can attend investigative interviews, but only if the police give permission, which they have never done. Demands for transparency continue.

Pollution of UK with Raw Sewage

Privatisation of the Water Utilities in the UK led to 3 decades of big profits to shareholders (over £50 billion in dividends), while there was a continuous failure to manage and invest in water provision and raw sewage disposal as required in their contracts. The level of pollution, by far the worst in Europe, became an issue in early 2023 with admission of problems and promises to remedy matters subject to consumers paying through higher fees. A Report from 2002 prepared for the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) predicted exactly what has occurred, and the author has called for a release of his Report. This Report should have been released under the 20-year rule. However, the CMA claims exemption using impenetrable bureaucrat-speak. Demands for transparency continue.

As in these examples, demands for transparency occur in a charged atmosphere, commonly following a serious or long-standing failure, when reputations may be at stake and the government may be in the firing line.

The more serious the issue and the greater the demand from the public to know what is going on, the more likely is political or media support. Unrelenting informal pressure typically fails to move powerful arrogant bodies. In such cases, legal compulsion may be required by a judge's court order, instruction from a minister or specific legislation. Sometimes an inquiry with wide-ranging powers of compulsion is set up using legislation to specify those powers and provide a framework for their proper use.

Distinguish Events from the Institution

Plotting the Work

Demanded transparency is about access to detailed knowledge of the institution. So a great deal of knowledge is required to know to whom to address demands and what to demand. Typically the demand relates to a variety of materials, access to diverse governmental and service participants, and possibly information from users and experts. So this work is located very high on the Y-axis.

Transparency is demanded by the public when it is believed that too much is hidden or kept private to the detriment of any proper understanding. A high degree of social consensus is required for demands to have any hope of impact. The goal is to produce facts and conclusions that everyone will be comfortable to agree with. So the work is located very high on the X-axis.

We therefore place demanding transparency at the upper right extreme of the upper right quadrant as shown in the diagram: as expected for t7/L7.

Demanding transparency is the final and arguably the most powerful way to impact a societal institution. There appears to be no higher or additional way.

Now review the 7 ways to impact on a societal institution.

Originally posted: 9-Nov-2022. Last updated 30-Jun-2023.