As the clock ticks towards next March and the deadline for Brexit looms, you might expect there would be more information emerging about how the country is preparing for departure.

That there isn’t is partly due to the government and other public bodies being reluctant to place in the public domain any information that might spread undue alarm.

That hasn’t stopped a dribble of information being leaked that has had the effect of causing the alarm the government and others wanted to halt.

Tales of traffic gridlock, shortages of medicines and fresh foods alongside suggestions that we stock up on emergency supplies have given the media plenty of material to warn of a ‘Brexit Armageddon.’

You might think that the Freedom of Information Act would be the tool to overcome this information lockdown.

With some exceptions, it has not - despite the fact that there are very clear and persuasive arguments to be made that disclosure of contingency plans would be in the public interest.

One of the problems is that the government and others have been able to deploy Section 35 of FOIA which allows for requests to be refused where policy formulation is involved. It requires the engagement of a public interest test.

The exemption is often engaged in circumstances where civil servants or officials are discussing various options - so-called ‘blue sky thinking’ - which they may not feel free to do so were it to be done in public rather than in what is often termed a “safe space.”

It is a particular useful exemption for the government so far as Brexit is concerned. Virtually every aspect of preparing for withdrawal, from contingency plans to the UK’s negotiations with EU member states, can be classified as on-going policy formulation.

But there is something of a developing collective bureaucratic paranoia over releasing anything at all.

The HMRC’s Border Planning Group is being particularly intransigent.

After dismissing our FOI request for reports that the group had considered at its meetings saying it would not be in the public interest to do so, it has now rejected a request to be given the titles of those reports.

It has invoked the public interest test and concluded that as the information was related to policy formulation, it shouldn’t be disclosed.

Or as its refusal letter puts it: “We consider that releasing the requested information would be likely to curtail the space in which officials operate to develop, test, and converse on policy options in order to advance ideas and prepare them for a decision and implementation. The policy process must afford officials and ministers the opportunity to develop, and consider a full range of options to enable a set of balanced decisions to be reached. We conclude that the public interest favours protecting this policy formulation and development space and hence protecting this information from release.”

Yes, that’s right: providing titles of reports are not in the public interest.