Education secretary Michael Gove, as we all know, is something of a stickler for standards. But when it comes to his own department, standards are something that his officials seem to have a rather casual - not to say cavalier - approach to, at least so far as Freedom of Information goes.

A year ago, I lodged a request with the DfE asking for any information it held in private emails exchanged between Mr Gove and his officials, along with Kent County Council, relating to the council's involvement in a legal dispute with the department after the abrupt cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme.

The request was made last October and should have been responded to within 20 working days. To date, I have not had a formal response as required under the law; I have not even had a refusal notice telling me that the DfE does hold information but isn't prepared to give it to me.

The request I made was triggered by the disclosure of a leaked email obtained by the Financial Times, written by Mr Gove using his private account, sent to special advisers and a civil servant around the same subject. This led to a number of FOI requests on the subject but the DfE has sought to argue that as private account emails, they are not government-related and, therefore under the law, exempt from the Act.

That argument has been demolished by the Information Commissioner (the FOI watchdog) who has ruled that it is the content of emails that matters when it comes to determining whether they are captured by FOI - not whether they are sent from a private account.

Frustrated by the DfE's prevarication and despite any number of (unanswered) reminders, I eventually made a formal complaint to the Commissioner, who has now ruled that the DfE must give an answer within ten days.

It could still reject my request, of course. It could tell me that any emails that might have been sent no longer exist (how convenient). It could give me everything I have asked for (being optimistic here). All I'd like is an answer of some description.

Whatever the outcome, the episode is a good illustration of why journalists retain a healthy scepticism when it comes to the utterances of politicians who preach the virtues of transparency and accountability and then do completely the opposite. So far as Mr Gove is concerned, it is a perhaps a case of "could do better." Maybe he should be served with a notice to improve...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Should Kent County Council be taking the axe to funding for sports development? The Conservative administration's line is that a cut of £200k is acceptable and justifiable because it it simply taking the budget back to pre-Olympic levels.

But opposition is growing and there is dissent in the Tory ranks.

Cllr Mike Jarvis, a backbencher, says it is wrong and risks squandering Kent's Olympic legacy because the authority should be building on the interest in sport the Olympics has prompted and using it as a catalyst to get more people active - entirely reasonable arguments. KCC says that it is protecting funding for the Kent School Games, which is true.

But they started before the Olympics and it is unclear what additional plans the authority may have to further develop new programmes or schemes - and without any money, it is rather hard to see how they might happen.

Cllr Jarvis rather tellingly points out that KCC spends colossal sums on external consultants and suggests that if the council is looking to save money, this ought to be an area the council takes a look at first.

I SPENT a fair amount of time earlier this year reporting on the activities of Allhallows Parish Council.

It is one of those authorities to which the Prime Minister wants to hand over greater responsibility. The trouble is, most parish councils in Kent are self-perpetuating oligarchies.

They have insufficient candidates and select from friends and "interested" individuals. It rapidly opens the way to abuse of the system as I immediately discovered the minute I turned up for my first meeting.

"Who are you?" and "What do you want?" were rapidly followed by a refusal to make available papers to which any member of the public is legally entitled - agendas, minutes and any reports.

The problem in the village of Allhallows was the youth club had become a very popular attraction for the local kids who had nowhere else to go.

A couple of recently-appointed councillors had got to grips with the problem, taken over The Brimp (a tatty old builders' hut complex), roused local support from kids, parents and assorted adults, and transformed it.

That upset the Old School of Benevolents who handed out grants, ran a handful of activities and claimed the praise for so doing. They tried to shut it.

They were up against some angry residents.

The most disgraceful thing (for any observer or believer - however jaded - in democracy) was the way the local police support officer was ticked off in public by a councillor for having the temerity to praise the club for the work it was doing with the young people..

Several residents decided to force an election last May.

Hate and abuse messages started to fly through the ethernet, by phone, through whispering campaigns and even at this blog.

The election went ahead, and most of the old school was turfed out.

I raise this issue five months later because in the past few days the newlook parish council has won two of the top five awards in this year's Kent Village of the Year competition.

One was for best newcomer.

The other was for The Brimp - taking the best Social Action award.

It pays over £3,000 a year as a mayoral allowance, it still has a mayor's chain, and the recipient of the mayoral thousands wears the civic bling.

It simply lacks a mayor.

The man appointed to the position, Cllr Tony Searles, decided off his own bat to drop the title - and become the council's chairman.

No one seems to have approved the decision, consulted on it, or bothered to tell the person who runs their website which introduces Swanley Town Council with these words: "It is essentially a parish council but has adopted town status which means the chairman of the town cCouncil is designated mayor."

There is a golden opportunity to hear what the front runners have to say about the election issues tonight.

There is also a pretty good chance that the minor parties, the CCTV banners and the Get Rid of Everyone brigade will get a look-in, throwing in questions to try to unsettle the big boys.

I am talking about the Medway Messenger's hustings which are being held at 7pm tonight in the Pilkington Building at the Universities At Medway campus.

On the top table - ready to field the quizzers - will be the group leaders of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat groups, Rodney Chambers, Paul Godwin and Geoff Juby, together with the Green candidate, Trish Marchant.

Holding the chairman's gavel will be fellow blogger, Paul Francis, Political Editor of the KM Group and the only reporter to be Kent Journalist of the Year on three occasions.

We have already had some excellent questions, but the real excitement will come from the questions on the night.

So come along - ask your questions - or just listen as the sparks fly.

***

One of my colleagues discovered that not every candidate is necessarily enthusiastic about winning.

I do not intend to give the self-appointed foul-mouthed individual publicity, but suffice it to say he didn't care whether or not he won a seat, and if the electorate is foolish enough to put him in a position of responsible power he was unlikely to attend council meetings.

So, Mr Prospective Candidate, why bother participating in the first case?

***

The saga of the parishes continues unabated.

Allhallows has called an emergency meeting tomorrow night in a bid to fix the lease on the Brimp before the election next week while High Halstow joined the list of parishes which have avoided an election.

***

New buses are coming to Medway.

Five completely unique singledeckers have been ordered for the 116 route between Hempstead, Rainham and Chatham.

This is becoming the Arriva service to serve the new higher and further educational establishments in Gillingham and Chatham Maritime.

A temporary principal has been appointed at the troubled Bishop of Rochester Academy.

A shudder ran round the news room - rather like a bit character in Harry Potter's life, I had mentioned That Which Shall Not Be Mentioned.

In the past year Allhallows Parish Council has managed to become part of Medway newspaper folklore (along with one or two killers, a few tragic accidents, the odd wedding, and the good looks of Ugly Sisters at Central Theatre pantos).

I'm not going to air the old arguments but it came down to a matter of personalities (and their strength), of knowledge (or lack of it) and of sheer cussedness.

This week the parish council met for the last time before they go to the polls.

One councillor has dropped out of the running.

The other seven councillors are entering entirely new ground: they will fight an election next month along with six other candidates.

The worst thing that could happen is if the two factions split the vote four - all. It is not inconceivable.

What would then happen is that the eight would have to agree on a chairman. Failing that it would fall to the parish clerk to control the council's programmes and decisions.

As the present incumbent has indicated that she can only work five hours a week on parish matters compared with the ten for which she is contracted, and has lodged complaints against one of the councillors, it might end up with resignations.

It might also end up with resignations if the new faction at the council gains control.

Whoever wins faces a major task.

There is a lurking black hole for which they should all be aware. And so should the electorate.

It is this: unless they cut their spending plans for 2012, this year's 38 per cent rise in the parish precept (effectively the village tax) will seem insignificant.

This is because the number of taxable properties in Allhallows is plummeting as the leisure park removes the traditional chalets overlooking the beach.

As the number of properties drop the individual cost increases unless the new council finds ways of cutting services.

At the moment Yvonne Forrrest's explanation for the current 38 per cent rise (that "we aren't required to follow the same rules as Medway Council") holds good.

Parish Councils can fix any rate they fancy, or get all of their precept without any guarantees that the money will be collected.... at the moment.

Medway Council has handed over several hundred thousand pounds to the parishes in the past few days.

It includes nearly 60 grand to Allhallows.

It is their spending for the coming year.

If villagers default on their bills, or their homes are pulled down before the end of the year, then the people of Medway must cover the cost.

For how much longer will the government allow that to happen?

***

If you thought the bitter rows were over, think again.

The meeting was interesting - it certainly didn't disappoint those who enjoy petty bickering.

There was a lot of political manouevering using the resignation of a councillor not seeking election, and sparring over the scouts use of the Brimp, to cause upset.

It would certainly never be allowed in Medway.... or Kent .... or neighbouring Stoke .... or virtually anywhere.

No. The real enjoyment for those who like bare-knuckle fighting was the way the clerk refused to allow a councillor to speak "until he apologises to me for being rude in public".

Well, I was listening quite closely at the time of the outburst by the paid employee of the council.

I noted that a councillor told the clerk that a matter being discussed was for parish councillors to consider (eg, not for a paid employee).

I didn't notice rudeness - just a factual statement.

From the resigned silence of the other councillors it would seem they agreed with their colleague.

This silence seemed to stun the lady into silence.

I now wonder what the role of the chairman is if it is not to ensure balanced, polite discussions.

***

Medway Council has also finally gone into recess (apart from the odd Cabinet meeting and a planning gathering).

If I had any money it would be on a reduced Conservative vote, the demise of the Liberal Democrats as a force in Medway, Labour gains, the possibility of some of the minor parties parties getting a look in - but the disappearance of a number of present-day councillors.

The real disgrace is the failure of parish councils to set aside cash for the 2011 elections. It has caused a number of councils to end up with the perfect list of nominees, and for several people to stand down. That is robbing the people of a democratic choice.

I was astonished at read the comments of a blog reader and politician I have respected for many years in response to "Democracy Lives?" on April 4.

He has fought strongly for democratic interest and looked for support in that process for numerous years - certainly for the 20 that I have known him.

I cannot agree with him now, however.

His comments about councillors standing down to avoid a fight for paris seats is very worrying for if we can ignore the individuals and consider the principle, looking coldly, analytically, and without prejudice at what he wrote.

First - he says three people have taken an interest in the parish and chosen to stand for election.... Well, providing they are qualified and properly nominated like any other candidate they are entitled to stand. That they may be from a political party is not something with which I| agree, but they have that right.

Second - Because of that, other candidates (sitting councillors) have decided they will walk away. Wow!

Whatever happened to the right of the majority democratically to decide who represents their best interests? When did it become the God-given right of the minority (a handful of village 'elders')  to decide they know better? To wait and see if there is to be a competition - then stand down - is an appalling interference with the rights of the village to decide. It is not just which faces fit. It is also whether they want a change in direction, an opportunity for new ideas to be tested against the established ones, and indeed whether they want any political interference in village life.

For all I know the councillors standing down may be the best in the world. So, too, might the parish council of Cliffe and Cliffe Woods. Yet these are undemocratically, self-appointed councillors, unelected by the masses. (It's my blog and I am entitled to describe the method being argued for as 'unelected'.)

It is a great pity for any local authority to lose valued, contributing members, but it is the right of the majority to be able to make that decision, whether it is a correct one or a wrong one, whether the majority ends up with a black, white, purple, green, blue, red, yellow or blue-and-yellow body in charge. That is what democracy is about. Anyone who takes that right away from the public is robbing it of a hard-earned right.

Cliffe is not the only place where this happens. It is going on across Kent, and probably further afield.

These are people who can slap a 43 per cent increase on the village precept (as has happened elsewhere in Medway) with inpunity. As I have said before: there is one rule for boroughs and counties, and none for parishes when it comes to charging for services.

These same people could - within the span of the new council's life - take on greater roles that until now have been democratically provided by district council, borough council, county council, regional authorities and government. Yet the candidates standing down are stealing that right from the people they have been able to represent without challenge.

They say they are saving the parish money - more likely saving their own faces.

Nothing democratic here - just crass cowardice when faced with a small challenge.

***

Meanwhile, I hear that Derrick Singleton has moved within the council but has not left its employ. I am delighted to correct the record.

[Since my lunchtime blog]

There are 18 parish councils in Maidstone borough. News has just reached me that there will be parish elections ....... in just two of them.

They won't be alone, but the people of rural Maidstone once again miss out on the process on which the whole democratic is fragilely balanced.

Can you imagine what it would be like if 649 people stood for the House of Commons?

We would have nothing to do with the democratic process.

Rotton Boroughs would be back again.... (sorry someone has asked about the 650th constituency in the UK - simple: that's where the Speaker comes from.)

Democracy is fragile. It needs to be protected.

THE next stage of the run up to May 5's local elections has just come to an end with the closure of nominations.

Candidates had until midday today to get their nominations in - along with lists of supporters who can vouch for their standing in the community.

The Conservatives were boasting last week that all their candidates in the 22 wards had been cleared of any blemishes (at least their nomination papers were correctly completed).

Labour was less lucky, and still searching for official supporters to complete nomination papers at the weekend.

Papers were handed in this morning - just before the deadline.

Staff were already trying to sort out papers belonging to several of the smaller parties.

Electoral officers are currently checking the entries, but all three major parties are said to have candidates in virtually every ward, there are plenty of independents in the offing and it looks as though the parish councils are about to get a wake-up call with at least two polticial parties - Conservative and Liberal Democrats - putting in nominations on the west bank of the Medway.

***

If the parishes do have an election, it will be the first in Medway since there was a stand-off in High Halstow in 2003, and only the second since the beginning of the 1990s.

The row at Allhallows (which has spilled on to this blog site and the Medway Messenger's web pages) seems to have sparked renewed interest in the principle of democracy. The practice of the same should follow later.

***

One of the names in the borough council hat is that of Dan McDonald, the chief executive of the Medway CItizens Advice bureau.

Mr McDonald had a good airing yesterday on The Politics Programme on BBC-1 sparking a few angry comments from the Liberal Democrats.

Mr McDonald is an interesting character.

He has variously been a Labour Party member and a Lib Dem (he was press officer for their most successful candidate in the 2010 Gneeral Election.

These days Dan is with the Andy Stamp independent group.

Interesting to read recently that when he worked for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in North Devon as a housing manager he was known as Rory.

***

I understand one of the Lib Dem candidates is a fellow with the name Jasmin. The Bosnian barrister pronounces it Yasmin in case there was any doubt.

***

On a more mundane level, I hear Derrick Singleton, the former housing chief who was moved sideways, has now left the council. The sound of the door clanging shut was (I undestand) delberately silenced.

***

Among the many who will not be standing for election next month are the two MPs who have also been councillors, Reh (call me Rehman) Chishti and Mark Reckless. They are going to concentrate their efforts in Westminster.

***

A regular correspondent has taken me to task for having the temerity to suggest that most parish councillors are unelected.

If you don't face the election ballot, and get more votes than someone else, that is not an election. It is a sham, shames the community , and is certainly not a democratic process.

If, as then happens, the rest of the council is selected from "volunteers" that is even more disgraceful. Interviews were held at one peninsula parish council to decide who fitted in with the rest of the council - and who should be excluded. It saved an election. It did nothing for democratic rights.

Elections? - stand up and be counted!

At long last sense has been brought to bear in the long-running saga of the youth club at Allhallows.

Whether it was bloody-mindedness, pendantics or something more sinister as some suspected, the club has secured the long term future of its headquarters at the Brimp.

It has taken the involvement of Medway Council lawyers, advisors and mediators to bring a degree of rationality to the arguments.

Not that everything was necessarily clear on the night.

The chairman, Yvonne Forrest, had earlier revealed there were fears over asbestos in the building.

At last week's meeting she revealed she had taken angry, unidentifiable, but litiginous, calls - and ordered a second survey. That despite an earlier one that gave the building a clean bill of health - and at a fraction of the cost.

Then she revealed for the first time that the real concern was over fire escape routes.

Whether she intended it or not, it was understandable that among the audience there were confused (and angry) parents who considered it was all a pack of excuses to delay and obstruct the club. Indeeed, it was difficult to find anyone who supported the stance of the majority of the council.

Now the club has a permanent home (once all the paperwork is concluded), the streets should be clear of young people most nights of the week and a sorry mess is coming to a conclusion.

Most importantly to the diginified youngsters who have patiently sat through the arguments, the club is open once again, giving them somewhere to meet and enjoy their peers' company.

***

The tragedy in Japan is being closely followed by many Medway people.

There are numerous close links between the Medway Towns - in particular Gillingham - and the Japanese people that stretch back to the first Western sailor to set foot on the island.

William Adams was a Gillingham sailor. As a young man he commanded a fleet provisioning the English navy as it chased the Armada, and later became the Pilot Major in charge of a fleet of five Dutch ships that tried to find its way across the Pacific to China - only to be wrecked on the East coast of Japan.

He swiftly endeared himself to the country's overall war lord, Eayasu, as he gained control of Japan, and became its first Western Samurai.

His memory lives on in Japan and led to the probably unique situation that Medway was effectively twinned with two Japanese cities where he lives or died - Yokusuka and Ito.

The Mayor of Medway, Cllr David Brake, has sent messages to both cities express condolences on behalf of the people of medway.

Former mayor, Cllr Sue Haydock, who is an honorary mayor of Yokosuka, has also sent a message of condolence.

Older generations have bitter memories of of the Japanese nearly threequarters of a century ago.

Those of us who have had the pleasure to meet more recent generations have encountered a community with a cheery, fun-loving outlook, eager to share their lives and experiences. They don't deserve the horrors through which they are now being forced to live.

THE government has caused concerns among councils by several recent pronouncements.

Cuts, more cuts, changes in ground rules ....

One recent letter from Bob Neill, the Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has added a few ripples to the pool of consternation. He wants to encourage bloggers, tweeters and assorted amateur cameramen to report and record what councillors are doing, as they are doing it, and for the future stars of screen to welcome this with open arms.

Try raising your camera in Medway Council!

Come to that, produce a mobile phone, aim its camera anywhere close to a seat of power, and you are likely to attract the Evil Eye from either side of every councillor's face as the officers descend on you from all corners of the chamber.

It's not unique to Medway. Many are far worse. Every council is worried that the occasional slip, sneer or outright bit of abuse will become worldwide news. Yet Mr Neill makes a convincing argument for openness.

"It is essential to a healthy democracy that citizens everywhere are able to feel that their council welcomes them to observe their local decision-making and through modern media tools keep others informed as to what their council is doing.

"The mainstream media also needs to be free to provide stronger local accountability by being able to film and record in meetings without obstruction," he wrote to council leaders and monitoring officers.

"Council meetings have long been open to interested members of the public and recognised journalists, and with the growth of online film, social media and hyper-local online news they should equally be open to Citizen Journalists and filming by mainstream media.

"Bloggers, tweeters, residents with their own websites and users of Facebook and YouTube are increasingly a part of the modern world, blurring the lines between professional journalists and the public."

He added: "... I want to encourage all councils to take a welcoming approach to those who want to bring local news stories to a wider audience."

I asked the chairman of Allhallows Parish Council, Cllr Yvonne Forrest, last night whether her council would open up in the way that Mr Neill suggests. After all, Allhallows has not been having the easiest of existences with recorders and writers - professional or amateur.

Mr Neill's letter came a fortnight after her council insisted that only the clerk could record conversations, scenes and actions.

It is a great pity.

Had the council not barred the cameras, tape recorders, DVDs, blogs et al it would have made for the sort of entertainment that few (other than seasoned journalists) get to see, and which stretch the credence of the written word.

She considered the question.

"It would need a change to our Standing Orders," she said. And no, there were no plans for such a discussion.

There is hope for the peninsula's eager emailers, Tweets and Blog-ettes: Cllr Mark Skudder asked for it to be discussed at the next meeting of the council. The spoken request will not be enough, however. He has to use modern communication methods (an email) for the request to be considered.

Dibley-on-Sea would rival anything Dawn French might have conceived.