Back in May 2008, Mar­tin Rosen­baum at the BBC Free­dom of Inform­a­tion blog asked:

What do busi­ness and gov­ern­ment say to each other? Many people want to know, some of them hoped that a free­dom of inform­a­tion law would help them find out.

Well, yes indeed. But what about the BBC itself? The BBC has its own pub­lic affairs depart­ment to lobby Gov­ern­ment on its behalf. And, revolving doors being what they will, when charter nego­ti­ations come up it can usu­ally save money and hire a civil ser­vant or two to cut a deal with former colleagues.

Still, it does hire the occa­sional pub­lic affairs com­pany. So what does it tell the world about such stuff?

Here is a reply [pdf] to a Free­dom of Inform­a­tion request made in Janu­ary 2008. The request asks for details of lob­by­ing firms employed by the Beeb. It weighs the argu­ments carefully…

In favour of dis­clos­ing, the Chair­man recognised:

• There is a pub­lic interest in trans­par­ency in rela­tion to the polit­ical pro­cess, includ­ing the lob­by­ing of Gov­ern­ment by vari­ous organ­isa­tions; and
• There is also a pub­lic interest in see­ing how Gov­ern­ment decisions are reached in rela­tion to pub­licly fun­ded organ­isa­tions such as the BBC.

In favour of with­hold­ing the Chair­man noted the following:

• There is a pub­lic interest in the BBC being able to effect­ively lobby Gov­ern­ment, so that it can con­tinue to provide the best pos­sible ser­vice to the licence fee payer. To do so the BBC needs to have access to can­did advice so that those man­agers lob­by­ing and liais­ing with Gov­ern­ment have all rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion before them. It is only with the bene­fit of free and frank advice that those man­agers can lobby for the BBC’s interest in the most effect­ive man­ner … the likely effect of dis­clos­ure in this instance is that such free and frank pro­vi­sion of advice from con­sultan­cies such as HRA would not be forth­com­ing in the future.
• It is in the pub­lic interest that a good rela­tion­ship is main­tained between the BBC and the Gov­ern­ment. Dis­clos­ure of this inform­a­tion is likely to hinder this dia­logue and pre­vent an effect­ive work­ing relationship.
• It is clearly in the pub­lic interest to have full and proper records of decisions made at the BBC, so that future decisions at the BBC can be made with the bene­fit of past exper­i­ence. The pro­spect of dis­clos­ure is also likely to adversely impact upon the record­ing of such advice and dis­cus­sions in the future.

And the res­ult? Dark­ness reigns…