Freemasons again...

Did you know that the government did an investigation into Freemasonry - and other organisations - in Government.  It’s called the Nolan Report, John Major asked for it, and it looked at Freemasons - and other organisations - in government. Did you know that?  Neither did I!  So what did it say?  Let's explore this together then kids!

So what was the report looking into?  It looked into:

“whether members of specific organisations should declare their membership in a register of interest”

And the Nolan principles apply to:

“anyone who works as a public office-holder [which includes] all those who are elected or appointed to public office, nationally and locally, and all people appointed to work in the civil service, local government, the police, courts and probation services, NDPBs, and in the health, education, social and care services”

Full disclosure, I only put the Freemasons in this purely because it was in the heading of this FOI request (And where I got the above statements). The response from the Committee on Standards in Public Life was to give the actual report that they made, and all the oral reports made. The also found two other reports which were made which can be found here and here.  Isn’t this fun kids?  People HAVE to disclose their conflict of interest because Freemason membership is considered “that of a charitable organisation and is therefore an interest that should be registered [Sir Anthony Holland 18.05.04 567]” .  

Here is the CPS’s response to whether freemasonry is compatible or not with the Nolan principles.  

So what about this in practice?  Turns out someone has ALREADY asked this for Swansea council. The response is brilliant. Swansea stated who is a Freemason (Literally named them), showed where they have to register AND gave their constitution on how they work within the Nolan Principles. That’s some pretty good going!

In this post I have talked a LOT about the Freemasons, but this could be to any other organisation within the realm of the Nolan Principles. The ONLY reasons that I bring them up here is because people do think of them as a sort of boogeyman (As stated in my previous in my previous blog, I am not agaist them).  They are not.  They are a secretive organisation, but that doesn't mean that they are up to something (or does it?).  What it means here, however, is that the boogeyman is in the spotlight.  I wonder what organisations are operating WITHOUT this level of scrutiny...