Premier Alex Scott and his Government deserve credit for moving forward with its Public Access To Information initiative, which began a road show this week and will likely be debated in Parliament in the next session.

Mr. Scott announced plans for the initiative ? more commonly known as "freedom of information" soon after becoming Premier in 2003.

In part he did so because of the reluctance of the Government of his predecessor ? Dame Jennifer Smith ? to release reports and information on Government's activities, to either the media or to the general public. That inevitably gave rise to the belief that the Government was "hiding something: and given the critical nature of some of the reports, that seemed to have some validity.

However, the critical content was exacerbated by the veil of secrecy that was thrown over them.

Mr. Scott, for all his faults, has kept his promise both to release the vast majority of the withheld reports, and to proceed with PATI. After extensive research and consultation, a discussion paper was tabled in the House of Assembly before Parliament broke last summer and it this paper that is now being shared with the public.

On the whole, the paper is a model for Green Papers, and as such, in marked contrast to the now infamous Bermuda Independence Commission report. In retrospect, it's a shame that the Central Policy Unit, which drafted the PATI paper, was not tasked with the Independence assignment.

Nonetheless, the PATI paper is both clear and readable, in spite of the fact that is obvious that its authors have conducted a vast amount of research on the question, both locally and abroad.

Assuming that this commitment to open Government continues, this initiative should be immensely valuable to both the general public, business, academics and to the media.

Having said that, there are a number of pitfalls.

Mr. Scott noted at a luncheon this week with business leaders that PATI demand a culture change within Government as civil servants and Ministers move from operating from a "need to know" philosophy to a "right to know" ethos.

This may be harder than it seems, and Government should beware of "outs" or delaying tactics that could be used to slow down the implementation of the project. That's not to say that some civil servants won't embrace this with open arms. They will. But others will be reluctant, and PATI should not be used to restrict information through unnecessary red tape as opposed to opening Government up.

Of particular concern is the length of time that the project will take to be enacted. Some of this is due to the lack of uniformity ? and reliability of record keeping from one Government department to another. There will come a time when Government will have decide to go, even if all records are not available.

Government rightly wishes to protect the privacy of private citizens on whom they have collected information. Determining what information on individuals is in the public interest and what information should remain private will be a massive challenge.

Government has not yet decided whether it will make information collected before the initiative comes into effect available, largely because of concerns about costs and administration. That's understandable, but the project's credibility will be damaged if people cannot get historical information.

In spite of those and other concerns, this is a good start to making "open and transparent" Government a reality.