The Home Office says it is not in the public interest to reveal how more than £500,000 of public money was handed over to an inmate at a North Yorkshire prison. The Northern Echo disagrees. Mark Foster reports.

THE furore surrounding the £575,000 compensation payment to an inmate at Northallerton Young Offenders Institution is unlikely to go away.

The Home Office's rejection of The Northern Echo's request under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) for details of the payment is more likely to fuel the controversy than quell it.

The Prison Officers' Association remains angry that the lack of disclosure makes everyone at the prison appear at fault.

And with such a large amount of money coming from the public purse, they say the details must be in the public interest.

The Northern Echo agrees and is launching a challenge to the rejection of the FoIA request and the reasons for it.

Harrogate's Liberal-Democrat MP Phil Willis yesterday tabled four written questions to the Home Office for reply on Thursday.

He is asking:

* How many prison staff at Northallerton have been dismissed or disciplined in each of the years from 2001 to 2006 following successful claims for compensation by prisoners?

* How many claims for compensation have been made by prisoners at Northallerton in the years 2001 to 2006, how many have been successful and, in each case, what action was taken by the prison authorities to prevent similar claims in the future?

l Why was a £575,000 compensation settlement agreed to an inmate of Northallerton?

* How many claims for compensation by inmates have been made at each young offenders institution in England and Wales in each of the years 2001 to 2006. How many have been successful, what was the amount of compensation paid for each claim and what was the total cost to the tax payer?

Grieving mother Kath Wright, from Northallerton, has a more personal reason for wanting to know the truth behind the payment.

Her 19-year-old son, Robert Longworth, hanged himself in Moorland Prison, Doncaster, in October 2002, where he was serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence for burglary.

For her, the question of compensation did not arise - although the Prison Service paid the £2,000 funeral expenses. She is still waiting for an inquest report.

Talking to The Northern Echo yesterday, she said: "It is about time they came clean. They have to open up and say what was going on in there."

"I never really got a full explanation of Robert's death and that was five years ago.

"How long can they get away with this sort of thing?"

When the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) was introduced, the Government lauded it as a landmark piece of legislation.

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, said: "We should be ready to open our doors, our files, our databases, so that the British people know what is being said and done in their name."

Tony Blair also made a personal commitment to a freedom of information act when he was Leader of the Opposition.

In a speech to the Campaign for Freedom of Information group, in 1996, he said: "Information is power and any government's attitude about sharing information with the people actually says a great deal about how it views power itself and how it views the relationship between itself and the people who elected it.

"We want to end the obsessive and unnecessary secrecy which surrounds government activity and make government information available to the public, unless there are good reasons not to do so. So the presumption is that information should be, rather than should not be, released."

The FoIA creates two rights of access for any person making a request for information to a public authority:

* To be informed in writing by the authority whether it holds the information of the description specified in the request, and

* If that is the case, to have that information communicated to them.

These rights are fundamental to the FoIA and are legally enforceable. However, they are subject to important exemptions.

While some areas of Government have embraced the Prime Minister's sentiments, others have been more reluctant to embrace the act.

Guidance issued to Whitehall staff says the "working assumption" should be to withhold advice, recommendations and options, but to release background factual information.

Writing in The Independent two years ago, Maurice Frankel, the national director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said: "All too often, everything, including the background material, is withheld. The Act requires disclosure unless openness would cause more harm to the public interest than good. But the Whitehall reflex is too often to say no.