STEPHEN DAISLEY: The SNP are allergic to transparency… so precisely what IS it they concern we’ll discover out?

Against the iron facade of the secretive SNP state stands one man, who is doing more than anyone else in public life to hold the Scottish Government to account. He is the one man ministers truly fear.

He is not the leader of an opposition party and you can’t vote for him in May. He’s not even a politician. He is the Scottish Information Commissioner, and his name is David Hamilton.

His office is not terribly powerful and the work involved is mostly dry, technical and legalistic.

It’s his job to enforce freedom of information laws and make sure public bodies – from local councils to the Scottish Government – are in compliance.

What sets him apart is his doggedness. Since his appointment in 2023, Hamilton has established a reputation for independence, one he is burnishing again by threatening to take the Scottish Government to court.

The row stems from a freedom of information request submitted to the Scottish Government in 2021 by Benjamin Harrop, a member of the public.

He asked civil servants to provide documents relating to the ministerial code inquiry into the Alex Salmond affair and the Scottish Government’s role in sexual misconduct allegations levelled at the former First Minister.

Two probes – one conducted by the Scottish parliament and the other by former Irish prosecutor James Hamilton – were launched after an internal government investigation into the Salmond allegations was ruled ‘unlawful’, ‘procedurally unfair’, and ‘tainted with apparent bias’.

In separate criminal proceedings, Salmond was prosecuted on 13 counts of sexual assault and cleared by a jury on all 13.

While the Holyrood inquiry concluded former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had misled MSPs, James Hamilton’s review determined she had no case to answer. When Mr Harrop lodged a freedom of information request to see the evidence from the latter inquiry, the government declined on the grounds that, since the Irish barrister was independent of ministers, they did not ‘hold’ the material requested for the purposes of the Act.

Mr Harrop took the matter to the Information Commissioner and, in November, David Hamilton ordered ministers to hand over some of the evidence submitted to James Hamilton (no relation).

The government has said it will comply but has yet to do so.

Its concern stems from the risk that the documents in question could make it easier to identify the complainers against Salmond.

Everything must be done to safeguard the anonymity of these women, but anonymity cannot be used as a pretext for disregarding freedom of information laws and keeping secret documents the public has a right to see.

That is why Hamilton has warned ministers they have until Thursday to hand over the papers or he will go to the Court of Session. They can drag their heels with the Information Commissioner, but the court has the power to hold them in contempt.

At long last, some accountability.

Hamilton rebuked ministers for a habit of ‘last-minute communication’, such as their 11th-hour admission they would not meet an earlier deadline.

This practice, he said, ‘reflects poorly on the ministers and disrespects the applicant and wider Scottish public on a matter of significant public interest’.

We have been waiting a long time to hear talk like this. It tells us there are still public servants prepared to do their jobs, whatever brickbats might come their way.

Accountability should not be a cause for celebration, it should be standard. There should be nothing remarkable about how David Hamilton goes about his duties. Yet, under the SNP, affairs of state have become so enshrouded in secrecy, and the leadership of the public and third sector so eager to keep in ministers’ good books, scrutiny has fallen by the wayside.

This is about more than the handling of one freedom of information request. It is about how the government conducts itself and what obligation to openness and transparency it considers itself to have.

SNP politicians are never done lecturing us on democracy when it comes to independence referendums, but democracy is more than scribbling on a ballot every few years. Representative government is impossible when the government denies those it represents their right to know what the powerful are doing in their names with their taxes.

Incidentally, ideological affinities are wholly irrelevant here. It shouldn’t matter what your personal politics are. You could be the most full-throated supporter of Scottish independence, and still you ought to be suspicious when your government gets out the black redacting marker.

Of course there are limits to what can be disclosed and where those limits are imposed. But the culture of cover- up which permeates the Scottish Government goes far beyond reasonable exceptions and legal exemptions.

It represents a collective attitude of aloofness, if not downright contempt, for ordinary Scots. We will only be allowed to know what they think we need to know, and nothing more.

That culture was equally on display when Sturgeon and First Minister John Swinney deleted their Covid-era phone messages; when former minister Michael Matheson dragged his heels on explaining how he had run up a vast data bill on his parliamentary iPad; when Justice Secretary Angela Constance misrepresented the views of an expert but had to be browbeaten into correcting the record.

Those of a certain vintage might recall an earlier SNP which was enthusiastic about giving the public access to the documents ministers and others rely on when making decisions.

That’s always the way of it. In opposition, the SNP regularly availed themselves of freedom of information legislation. They demanded transparency from the Labour-led Scottish Executive and used freedom of information requests to expose ministers’ missteps or misstatements.

But in government the Nationalists have proved to be allergic to transparency. It is as though they are so convinced of their own saintliness they do not need the kind of oversight other governments require. If anything, they require much, much more.

Government by whispers, chat groups, unminuted meetings and heavily redacted documents is a poor excuse for democracy. Is it any wonder nothing seems to work in Scotland when decision-makers need not fear being held to account for the decisions they take and the outcomes they unleash?

Have ministers asked themselves why Reform is polling so well or wondered if it is a symptom of a wider public malaise about ministerial candour and their answerability to the electors?

It is dispiriting but that is how it feels to be an ordinary voter in Scotland. We don’t have a government in this country so much as a ‘keep out’ sign with a parliament attached.

In this atmosphere of distrust and disdain it is inevitable the public will have more and more doubts about the official line presented by the government and public bodies. Some will try to get to the truth themselves by filing a freedom of information request, only to be rebuffed as has happened in this case. Their cynicism will only grow as a result.

David Hamilton’s dogged efforts on behalf of our right to know are commendable but Holyrood’s secrecy culture can only be defeated if there are more David Hamiltons.

We are not all in it together. There is the government and then there’s the rest of us. It is in our interests to know what they are up to and in theirs to prevent that from happening.

Scrutiny is not bias, or a vendetta, or any other such nonsense – it is the lifeblood of democracy.