AN obscure military officer is to be Scotland’s next freedom of information tsar.
Daren Fitzhenry, a senior member of the RAF legal branch, is to be the new Scottish Information Commissioner, a six-year post that comes with a salary of £73,000.
He is expected to be confirmed in the role by a vote of MSPs next Tuesday.
Mr Fitzhenry, a graduate of Glasgow University, has served in the RAF since 2000.
His appointment comes at a critical moment for Scotland’s 12-year-old FoI regime, with the Scottish Government’s poor record under the spotlight.
Mr Fitzhenry’s predecessor, Rosemary Agnew, recently ordered SNP ministers to improve their performance after a series of “totally unacceptable“ failures to respond to requests.
She gave them six months to comply with the law, arguing citizens were being denied their rights and public trust was being eroded by the government’s bad practice.
She also said she was confident her successor as Commissioner would pursue the action.
Mr Fitzhenry, who is currently based in West Sussex, will now work from St Andrews.
According to a biography released by the Scottish Parliament, Mr Fitzhenry has extensive of the “development, implementation and application of regulatory systems, legislation and international arrangements”, including application of UK FoI Act, which covers the military.
However most Scottish public bodies are covered by a more wide-ranging Scottish FoI Act, which entitles the public to information unless there are compelling reasons for withholding it.
The parliament also said Mr Fitzhenry had “an insight into the benefits and value of an effective freedom of information system as well as different practical approaches to the application and enforcement of regulation.”
However few other details were available, and the parliament was unable to give his age.
It is known that he graduated from Glasgow University with a masters of laws in 1996, and began working for solicitors Ferguson & Co in Stranraer in 1997, before switching to the armed forces.
He remains registered with the Law Society of Scotland.
He was selected after an open recruitment process by a panel chaired by Holyrood Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh, alongside Labour, LibDem, Tory and Green MSPs.
The selection was also overseen by an independent assessor to ensure fairness.
Since Ms Agnew left her post early in April, the Scottish Information Commissioner’s office has been run by head of enforcement Margaret Keyse as Acting Commissioner.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here