IT'S the kind of information black-out normally associated with Cold War spying sagas and other threats to the safety of the nation.
Page after page of official documents scored through with the censor's heavy black marker pen, with nothing - or next to nothing - deemed fit for the public eye. Such tough action has been demanded by Scottish Parliament bosses to protect sensitive material surrounding a pressing matter facing Holyrood - the problem of pigeons plaguing the new parliament building.
The birds have been causing a nuisance at the £431 million award-winning building since before it opened last year, with pigeon muck and feathers getting through vents into MSPs' offices. But a request under the Freedom of Information Act for documents showing how the parliament had addressed the issue produced 376 pages - most of them blacked out.
And today politicians demanded to know why the apparently innocuous matter of pigeons and their droppings should be surrounded by such secrecy.
The Evening News lodged the request on July 25 and it took the parliament two and a half months to produce the information.
But 149 of the pages are completely blacked out and a further 102 are blacked out except for
the heading or sign-off of the document.
There are also many other deletions. And many of the pages which were not blacked out consisted simply of e-mails trying to arrange for meetings or the delivery of reports."
How long did some well paid official sit with a magic marker, deleting material whose disclosure would have been of absolutely no consequence? It is bad enough that the subject of errant pigeons has produced 376 pages (have parliamentary officials nothing better to do?), but what happened to the transparent, accessible parliament we were promised?
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