Ordering last week's release of 1997 ministry papers in which Treasury officials warned Gordon Brown that a tax-raising measure would cost pension schemes and local authorities billions of pounds a year, Richard Thomas, information commissioner, said the public interest in the "transparency of the decision-making process" overrode ministry concerns that the information could be "misconstrued".

The instruction to publish such financially and politically sensitive material - particularly when the minister concerned is not only still in office but in the same office - has highlighted growing tensions over freedom of information laws that came into force barely two years ago.