IT'S not a surprise that public authorities – Government departments, councils, health trusts, police forces and the like – don't like the Freedom of Information Act.

Transparency is often uncomfortable when taxpayers' money is involved and FoI helps the media hold those authorities to account: challenging their spending, highlighting their failings and, on occasions, exposing corruption. It's a pain in the neck for authorities. I suspect a lot of them would like to see the back of journalists asking awkward questions – and that's precisely why we need to stand up to steps towards censorship.

FoI, you see, is under review, with Government moves to water it down and charge £25 per request, and that is being resisted by media organisations.

The Leader of the House of Commons, Chris Grayling, accuses journalists of “abusing" FoI to get stories. Reporters, he says, milk the FOI system as a “research tool”.

Well, it really comes down to whether those stories, and the research required to get them, are in the public interest, doesn't it?

FoI should only be used when journalists hit a brick wall. Ask the authorities the question first and only resort to FoI when they won't answer – that's the policy at The Northern Echo.

But that gateway to information must certainly not be shut, or made more difficult to pass through.

Take the example of the Press Association using FoI to ask the UK's 45 police forces how many registered sex offenders were missing. Thirty nine of those forces responded, revealing that 396 convicted sex offenders were off the radar, and leading to calls for an urgent review of the way sex offenders are monitored. That's clearly in the public interest.

Last week, the Daily Mail, with the Taxpayers' Alliance, revealed the results of 6,000 separate Freedom of Interest requests to produce a comprehensive national guide to the pay and perks being paid to those in top jobs in the public sector. To be fair, the North-East revelations were actually nothing really new. We'd already published details about the top-earner in the Daily Mail investigation, Professor Tricia Hart, the outgoing chief executive of the South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust, who's on a pay and perks package of £1.26 million a year, with a £2.5 million pension pot. But it was interesting to be able to see who's getting what around the country – not least the £735,000 annual package paid to Steve Allen, one of four Deputy Chief Constables of Police Scotland.

This will all make very uncomfortable reading for those cashing in at a time when the public sector is having the life squeezed out of it, but it is right that taxpayers see where their money is going.

The FoI system should certainly not be abused – but it is an important switch for the spotlight that needs to be shone in the public interest.

The Northern Echo has an FoI request in at the moment to find out how much public money is being spent on bringing in consultants to help Darlington Borough Council tackle the damning verdict delivered by Ofsted on the authority's children's services, which were "inadequate" to be the point at which children were placed at risk. The response from the council is that the answer has to come from the Department for Education (Dfe) which commissioned the consultancy firm, so our FoI request is now lodged with that Government department.

Getting answers in the public interest can take time – but it must be right for taxpayers to know how much additional public money is being spent on putting right a local authority's inability to manage arguably its most important service.

The underlying question for local authorities, relentlessly squeezed by austerity, is how they will afford to retain standards of service. How will Darlington Borough Council afford the recommendations that will emerge from the 12 months with the child services consultants?

These aren't frivolous questions which milk the FoI system. They are important questions which require public answers.

ONE day last week, I tweeted a preview of The Northern Echo's front page with the message: "The missing poppy will be added before we got to press – honest!"

It was an innocent tweet, aimed at reassuring those who might have thought we'd forgotten the poppy but it prompted one man to tweet back and call me "the worst kind of poppy fascist".

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't – I just believe that most of the readers of The Northern Echo would expect the paper to bear the symbol of remembrance.

I WAS proud, as a Deputy Lieutenant of County Durham, to lay a wreath on behalf of The Queen at the village cenotaph in Heighington.

However, I was embarrassed to discover that I'd left the house without any money whatsoever when a little cub scout came round with the plate at St Michael's Church.

At the risk of being called a poppy fascist again, I solemnly promise to come armed with cash on Remembrance Sunday next year. In the meantime, I can only apologise and point out that The Queen doesn't carry money either.

FINALLY, I'm able to advise the good people of Yarm that they can rest easily – they are not under attack from terrorists.

It's just that the News Guardian on Tyneside had a bit of a slip with a story on its website about a yarn bombing exercise in North Shields.

The headline read: "Yarm bombing to raise campaign awareness."