23.12.07
–
updated 03.01.08
Former metropolitan police commissioner Lord Stevens
was paid more than £300,000 to lead an official investigation into the
death of Diana, princess of Wales.
Stevens ultimately failed in his attempt to stop the information being
disclosed. But he hugely delayed its release by claiming that it would breach
his rights to privacy under the data protection act.
Figures dragged out of the met under the freedom of information act
(FOIA) showed that the police force paid Sir John Stevens, as he was then
known, a basic fee of £235,000 for his part-time role heading “Operation
Paget” during a 31-month period between February 2005 and September
2007.
Following his retirement at the beginning of 2005 as commissioner,
Stevens was retained as a con-sultant for the investigation, which was carried
out by the met on behalf of the coroner, into the deaths of Diana and Dodi
Fayed in 1997 in a car crash in Paris.
The figures raise a question as to why the met did not appoint a senior
serving officer to lead the investigation, so reducing its cost.
The met also paid related expenses to Stevens of £40,247, including
£26,550 for accommodation and £13,600 for travel. With VAT on
his basic fee, the met paid a total of £316,372 to Stevens through his
consultancy business.
Figures previously disclosed under FOIA showed that Paget cost up to
£750,000 during the first year of the investigation, including £42,000
on travel and accommodation, and that it had a team of 14 police officers,
each working part time on the case, plus another four support staff.
The team included an assistant commissioner, who spent up to 10% of
his time on the investig-ation, a detective chief superintendent, detective
chief inspector and a traffic officer.
According to research by the Mail on Sunday, Stevens earned
£150,000 a year as met commissioner, and the newspaper reckons that
his day rate on Paget of £1,000 was double the daily pay in his job
as Britain’s most senior policeman.
Stevens has taken on other lucrative work since leaving the met besides
the Diana investigation, which included leading the Football Association’s
investigation into soccer transfer “bungs”.
He told the Mail on Sunday that the payments were “justified”,
saying: “If you look at my commitment over two-and-a-half years, it's
been a continuous commitment since I left as comm-issioner. I don't get all
of that money, because it goes into the consultancy to help run that.”
The met initially refused the FOIA request, filed in February 2006,
for details of his fee and expenses, referring it the metropolitan police
authority (MPA).
The MPA also refused the request, and claimed that it was exempt from
disclosure for three reasons: first, it was “personal information”
and could not be disclosed because of the data protection act; second, the
information was supplied in confidence (implicitly by Stevens); and third,
publication would prejudice the commercial interests of Stevens’s consultancy
firm.
When this refusal was challenged, the MPA invited Stevens to make a
submission to a review of its decision on why the information should not be
disclosed.
Explaining the delay in completing its review, the MPA said: “This
was largely due to the need to give Lord Stevens the opportunity to give his
views on the release of the requested information.
“He has responded that he objects to the release of this information
on the grounds that he considers it to be personal data and release would
contravene the data protection principles of the data protection act.”
The MPA concluded that the second and third reasons should not have
prevented disclosure: the requested information was not supplied in confidence
and disclosure would not prejudice anyone’s commercial interests.
However, the review upheld the decision to refuse disclosure on the
grounds that releasing it would breach the data protection act, saying: “Whether
or not Lord Stevens was an employee of the MPA at the time, this is not a
request about his company's business with the MPA, but specifically about
personal payments to him. It is known that he objects to such information
being disclosed to a third party.”
The FOIA Centre advised that the claim by Stevens and the MPA that
disclosure would breach the data protection act was wrong and challenged it
in June 2006 with a formal complaint to the information commissioner, who
acts as the regulator of the relevant open-access laws.
The notorious backlog of complaints lodged with the information commissioner
meant that it was 16 months before an investigation into the case began in
October 2007.
The met then admitted that it held the requested information after
all. An official in its directorate of professional standards said: “Following
receipt of correspondence from the office of the information commissioner,
I have conducted further searches to locate information relevant to your request.
I can confirm that the requested information is held by the metropolitan police
service.
“I apologise for the delay in providing an approp-riate response
to your request and any inconvenience this delay may have caused. I can assure
you that a prompt response will now be made to your request for information.”
The met has finally supplied the figures, nearly two years after the
initial request.
In January 2008, the information commissioner’s office indicated
that it believed that the MPA was wrong to refuse disclosure on the grounds
that this was prevented by the data protection act.
It has asked the MPA to justify its refusal to disclose in light of
this view together with the fact that the met has released similar information.
Another version of this article first appeared in the Mail on
Sunday.
FOIA Centre commentary
This case demonstrates how FOIA is working in practice in the UK –
and its key inadequacies. A straight-forward request for information about
the spending of tax-payers’ money was met with obstruction and wrong-headed
refusal.
This much can be expected of public bodies unused to openness and accountability.
And this is why the role of the regulator, the information commissioner, in
upholding FOIA is crucial. Although the information commissioner ultimately
flushed out the requested information from the met, the delay of 16 months
before it even began looking into the complaint about the refusal to disclose
is the most depressing aspect of this case.
Such lengthy delays mean that the information commissioner is failing
the cause of freedom of information in the UK. All the available evidence
suggests that the regulator needs more resources to enable it to do its job
properly.
For clients of the FOIA Centre, it is an illustration of how we can
help them navigate the complexities and obstacles to retrieve information
under open-access laws. But it also shows how retrieving such information
can be a very lengthy battle.
Comment
on this article
Coroner quits inquest after
FOIA revelation
Met’s Diana probe cost
£750,000 in first year
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