Last year, in response to an OIA request I made back in 2010, DPMC decided to come clean and proactively release summary information on Cabinet Ministers' conflicts of interest. But there was a problem: the release only covered the period from October 2012 - September 2013. My previous OIA had forced release of information from June 2009 to July 2010, but there was a two year gap in the data. That gap has now been filled, and the documents are available on DocumentCloud, including statistical information on declared conflicts and how they were handled, and a summary of conflicts and action from July 2010 to September 2012. The core data:
- The Cabinet Secretary was informed of a conflict of interest under paragraph 2.69 on 168 occasions between July 2010 and September 2012
- 131 of these conflicts were sufficiently serious that the Prime Minister was advised of them in writing
- Ministers declared a conflict during a meeting on 135 occasions during that period
- Arrangements were made for Ministers not to receive papers on an issue on which they were conflicted on 8 occasions during that period
- Ministerial decisions were transferred to other Ministers 42 times to avoid a conflict of interest
- No Minister ever transferred a conflicted decision to a department