Letter: Open for business

Who can legitimately oppose calls to "lift the veil of secrecy from firms on the public payroll" (your report, 8 March)? However, it is simply misleading to consider arm's length bodies such as local authority leisure trusts and housing associations in the same way as truly private sector providers.

We responded to the Scottish Government's recent consultation on extending the Freedom of Information act (FoI). We argued that extension to cover special purpose public private partnership (PPP) companies is both unnecessary and potentially confusing because under existing provisions the public sector customers (eg health boards) of such companies are already included.

Private providers are obliged to share information with their public-sector clients (such as health boards); enquirers can and do make successful FoI requests of those public-sector bodies as a result.

Our contention is simple: there should be a presumption in favour of disclosure in relation to all contracts to which the public sector is a signatory, including the price paid by the public sector. Generally we seek to keep confidential only the intellectual property contained within proprietary software and our underlying costs.

PPP procurement is already more open to scrutiny than many appear to realise.

Andrew J Gordon

Canmore Partnership

St Vincent Street

Glasgow