Jump to this week’s FOI stories…

That’s according to a poll by the Information Commissioner’s Office where around 12% of people said they made an FOI request because a generative AI prompted them to do so when they have been researching something.

Sharing the poll, Warren Seddon, director, FOI and transparency, at the ICO, told a committee of MPs, he couldn’t say definitively that the massive increase in complaints the ICO is seeing is down to AI. However, a big rise in complaints seen by many organisations coinciding with increased access to generative AI suggested a link.

FOI complaints over the past 12 months rose 16% in Q1, 38% in Q2, and then 60% in Q3 and Q4. Historically, they rose 20-25% every five years.

Ben Worthy, an academic who researches FOI, told the Procedure Committee session that surveys of FOI officers found they thought 5% of requests were AI-assisted in January 2026. By January 2026, that was 11%.

He said there’s a question about what AI-assisted means. It could be requests that have been tidied up using AI, it could be suggested by AI or AI may generate the whole thing, someone could use AI agents to automate asking FOI requests entirely.

Requests generated by AI tend to be more complicated and harder to work through, and often involve more communication with the person who sent them, he added. Although some FOI officers in the survey said AI improved some requests as they got to the point quicker.

The ICO has issued guidance on how to handle AI-assisted requests. And Cheshire East Council has added a section to its FOI page with some of the advice.

The council said it was seeing an increase in requests and related correspondence that appears AI generated. Requests that are inaccurate or unnecessary complex need extra clarification and cause delays.

(Apparently public bodies do pay attention to ICO guidance. Maybe they should try putting out some more. Might help improve FOI performance, reduce complaints, and make everyone’s life easier?)

How to deal with AI Freedom of Information requests

The same ICO poll that found AI is suggesting people use FOI found 29% of people said they made the request because of an issue that matters to them.

People using FOI to find out about things that are important to them is a good thing, we want more of that.

If it’s taken AI for them to learn they can, that’s a failure to highlight the Act to people who could use it. I think there may have been a view that people should know about it but don’t promote it too much so public bodies aren’t inundated with requests. Unfortunately, that’s happened, but with added misinformation to extra clog up the workings.

There’s an interesting point that Alex Parsons, democracy lead and senior researcher at mySociety, touches on. A potential efficiency of WhatDoTheyKnow is that responses are public, so people can search and avoid making repeat requests.

It seems like there might be a way to reduce the AI-assisted FOI boom. Public bodies need to get a lot keener about getting information to people who are interested so they know about it before they start asking ChatGPT. That, or if it’s out there, AI might at least use it to produce an answer before suggesting an FOI request.

The FOI complaint backlog is bad

The ICO is currently taking eight months to allocate non-priority complaints to case officers for investigation. Its projecting by the end of this financial year it will take about 16 months to allocate a case.

The ICO aims to allocate complaints within 12 weeks. This doesn’t include complaints that have been prioritised and are supposed to be allocated within four weeks.

A 16 month wait for a case officer is worse than when Warren Seddon was launching his push to speed up complaint resolutions and cut the pandemic backlog. Back then the wait was about a year.

How MPs use FOI

It’s not just Freedom of Information seeing complaints about more requests and slow poor-quality responses.

The discussions of FOI above were part of a House of Commons Procedure Committee review of the Written Parliamentary Questions (WPQs) system amid concerns its coming under strain and not fully delivering on its intended purpose.

The committee has been taking evidence on how WPQs and FOI interact – how MPs use one or the other or both, and the challenges facing both.

WPQs allow MPs to obtain detailed and targeted information to help scrutinise Government policy and operations.

There’s some crossover with FOI – they generally follow the same rules for refusing to share information, the cost limit is set at 140% of the FOI cost limit and it can include producing a bit of analysis or explanation. But there’s no right to appeal for WPQs.

MPs will use WPQs to ask about information published under FOIs, raise FOI questions on behalf of constituents and even chase FOI responses. But they’re not big users of FOI.

Dr Worthy estimates somewhere between 1% and 5% of all FOI requests are put in by MPs. His research breaks MP’s FOI use into three groups:

• The personal campaigns or crusaders – about 15 to 20 regular users of freedom of information
• Political parties, using organised campaigns around their different portfolios. It used to be Labour, it’s now the Conservatives, and Plaid Cymru were keen users (at least until recently, probably)
• MPs who are given or come across FOI data from other people and then use it

So the UK’s MPs aren’t big users of FOI, possibly because they have an alternative in WPQs that should be quicker.

In comparison, a report looking at the FOI performance of several government departments in Australia found, of the requests looked at, more came from politicians (28%) than journalists (25%).

The cost limit might not be in imminent risk of reduction

The UK Government has floated that it might like to reduce the cost limit for answering FOI requests as a way to reduce requests.

Warren Seddon at the ICO doesn’t seem particularly keen (but that might be because the ICO has come up with its own collection of potential restrictions).

Currently, staff time for dealing with FOI requests is charged at a flat rate of £25 an hour, and the limit is per request is set at £600 for central government (or 24 hours) and £450 for other public bodies (or 18 hours).

Mr Seddon told the same committee of MPs: “There has been a bit of debate about it in the past, but it broadly works as it stands.”

His argument seems to be that the current limit works quite well at the moment in how it is applied.

That’s mostly because it’s tied to locating information, which makes it easier to evaluate how reasonable estimates are. If you start to add things like thinking time, it becomes much harder to judge.

Also because the limits haven’t changed, people have experience of how that limit works in practice.

Ongoing threat to Freedom of Information

Ontario is currently acting as an excellent (and worrying) example of what actually happens if make FOI laws more restrictive.

So far the retroactive law change to exempt minister’s records from scrutiny has been used to deny access to hundreds of records about a lobbying scandal to The Trillium, deny Global News access to documents that staff in the premier’s office kept outside of secure government systems, and deny The Canadian Press access to information about hospital budget cuts.

Briefings on flu, RSV and COVID-19 rates prepared for Ontario’s minister of health also cannot be released publicly under the restrictive new transparency rules.

Now, it may have shut down FOI in relation to the Ontario government completely.

A Microsoft Teams message was reportedly sent out to senior staff within the government’s access to information departments. Staff were told to pause all fee estimates, extensions, decision letters and the release of documents, according to The Trillium.

The pause, Global News reports, is at least partly prompted by the confusion and questions the changes have created. Government lawyers are apparently still figuring out exactly how the law will be applied and how to fight potential appeals.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, which was trying to verify the existence of a freeze, said: “An outright freeze on the processing of FOI requests, if there is one, would raise significant concerns about the public’s right of access to government-held information, transparency, and accountability.”

And you don’t even have to change the law…

The Australian Government didn’t manage to make changes to restrict FOI. But that doesn’t mean getting information is easy.

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) examined how three agencies dealt with FOI: the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Treasury, and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sports and the Arts.

The verdict? They don’t help requesters to make their request processable, they aren’t properly searching for documents, they’re slow, they don’t release documents they should, and they don’t update disclosure logs.

They also do a lot of ‘courtesy consulting’ of ministers about requests. And not much keeping records about those consults.

The report found 62% of Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)ll review decisions resulted in a reversal of an agency’s decision to refuse access.

All of this might sound familiar. But it means that, while passing restrictions on FOI makes getting information much harder, a culture of not cooperating can have a similar impact.

This week’s Freedom of Information stories…

Mental health crisis

Children experiencing a mental health crisis are being forced to spend up to three days in A&E before a specialist bed becomes available, NHS figures show.

To conduct the research, Freedom of Information requests were submitted by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to NHS trusts across England. They revealed the number of under-18s in mental health crisis waiting at least 12 hours for admission to a specialist unit has more than trebled, rising from 237 in 2019 to 802 in 2025.

Three trusts – Barts Health and Lewisham, Greenwich in London and Morecambe Bay in Cumbria – reported cases where children waited three days or more in A&E before a bed became available.

By-election costs

You thought elections were over. But if councillors quit and a by-election has to be held, it ends up costing councils.

Some by-elections due to ill-health or deaths are usual, but Reform councillors keep having to quit due to vetting issues. And the Greens councillors have accidentally been elected when they weren’t eligible to stand.

Since May last year, 17 of Reform’s councillors have vacated their seats. In 12 of these cases (70 per cent) the circumstances related to vetting or conduct issues, a lack of engagement with council duties, or basic administrative issues that were not spotted.

Of the 12 former Reform councillors, 11 are set to cost local taxpayers £287,000 in by-election costs, figures obtained by The Independent through Freedom of Information requests indicate.

Six Green councillors have stood down in London since elections there. One has been suspended from the party, while three are ineligible to serve as councillors – two because they work for the local council as teachers.

Unspent cash

More than £31 million of Stoke-on-Trent’s Levelling Up money remains unspent – nearly five years after the funding was announced. Stoke-on-Trent City Council was awarded £56 million for a raft of regeneration schemes by the Boris Johnson government in 2021, three Prime Ministers ago.

‌But figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request show that the city council has yet to spend most of the money. The Goods Yard development next to Stoke Station, which was allocated £16 million of funding, is still the only one of Stoke-on-Trent’s Levelling Up schemes to be completed so far.

Red routes

Scotrail has revealed its “red list” of train services that have the highest levels of youth antisocial behaviour and drunk passengers.

The rail operator uses a traffic-light system to rate routes with the most issues, including the likes of antisocial behaviour, trespassing, and staff experiencing verbal abuse.

With hundreds of train services travelling across Scotland every day, it has been revealed that the Stirling to Arbroath and Edinburgh to Dunblane routes were placed on the highest level of ScotRail’s traffic-light system.

The Courier also revealed through a Freedom of Information request that two routes through Fife were also given an amber rating after reports of vandalism and train staff being assaulted.

Communication requests

The Metropolitan Police asked tech companies to give officers access to private communications data over 700,000 times in 2025 alone, according to figures obtained by The Register under the Freedom of Information Act.

These statistics expose the monitoring of everyday platforms like takeaway delivery services, and also show a massive surge in the force’s surveillance of the users of low cost MVNO LycaMobile. Additionally, the FoI exposed the acquisition of data from encrypted messaging services designed to offer privacy.

Unregulated residential child care

More than £3.4 million was spent placing children in unregulated accommodation last year by Hampshire County Council due to a shortage of registered care placements, newly released figures show.

A Freedom of Information response reveals between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, the authority spent £3,422,799 on unregulated placements.

HCC recorded 22 uses of unregulated settings over the period, including four longer-term placements and 18 brief placements involving looked after children.

Tube travel

It’s always worth keeping an eye on disclosure logs for public bodies that actually keep them updated.

Tottenham Court Road is the busiest London Underground station, new figures from Transport for London (TfL) show.

A total of 63.4m people used the Northern and Central line station, which also connects to the Elizabeth line, in 2025. The least used station is Roding Valley on the Central line in Essex.

The data was revealed in a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request, and counts actual entry and exit taps, rather than an annualised average.

Cheating

Two London universities kicked out students for cheating with artificial intelligence in the last academic year, according to new data.

Both University College London (UCL) and Imperial College London expelled students during the 2024-25 academic year, according to data released under the Freedom of Information Act.

More than 2,000 undergraduates at Russell Group universities were punished for misusing generative AI tools in 2024-25, compared to around 700 in 2023-24, data collected by The Times shows.

Prison smuggling

Exclusive data obtained by Edinburgh Live reveals multiple cases of narcotics being smuggled into HMP Addiewell.

Cannabis, spice, tablets and street valium are just some of the drugs non-inmates have attempted to smuggle into the jail over the last five years.

A Freedom of Information request by Edinburgh Live reveals 42 incidents of drug smuggling within the prison. These attempts have been made through three different methods – throw overs, drones and during visits.

Shoplifting arrests

The number of people arrested for shoplifting in York has continued to increase over the last five years, new figures show.

Figures from North Yorkshire Police, revealed by a Freedom of Information request by The Press, showed that 466 people were arrested for shoplifting in York last year – up 64 from 2024.

It compares to 362 arrests for shoplifting in York in 2023, 262 in 2022 and 253 in 2021.

Child criminals

A one-year-old girl was among hundreds of Kent children recorded as crime suspects. She was reported to police after another child suffered a minor injury.

The data, obtained via a Freedom of Information request to Kent Police, also included six two-year-olds, 11 three-year-olds and 20 four-year-olds reported to police.

Speeding

A driver was caught doing 154mph at a speeding hotspot on a dual carriageway by a speed camera, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed.

The motorist was clocked on the A14 at Fenstanton in 2023, where others were captured doing 124mph in 2024 – and 143mph in 2025.

Tattoo studios

Over 140 tattoo studios, and 240 tattooists, have been registered in Herefordshire over the last decade, with new figures suggesting growth in the trade has yet to level off in the county.

Herefordshire Council was asked in a Freedom of Information request how many tattoo studios, premises providing tattooing services and individual practitioners were licensed with it in each of the past ten years.

Missing library books

Outer London borough libraries are more likely to see children’s books go missing than inner boroughs, a series of Freedom of Information requests has shown.

Of the 13 boroughs that supplied information, nine of them have seen an increase in children’s books going missing – just under 70%. Out of those nine, seven of them are in outer London.

In Sutton Central Library, 620 more children’s books went missing in 2025/26 alone compared to adult books, and picture books constituted almost a quarter – so there is a demand.

Speeding caravans

Drivers in two of Britain’s best-known holiday destinations are being caught out by a little-known speeding rule linked to caravans and motorhomes, with new figures showing the South West dominates the national totals.

Data obtained from the DVLA under the Freedom of Information Act shows Devon and Cornwall accounted for more than one in five SP20 driving endorsements issued across Britain between 2022 and 2025.

The SP20 code is issued when motorists exceed the speed limit specific to their type of vehicle, including caravans, motorhomes and vehicles towing trailers.

Image by Ellie Burgin on Pexels

The post Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 22/5/2026 – #FOIFriday first appeared on Words + Numbers.

Jump to this week’s FOI stories…

No one seems to have asked them. They’ve apparently just decided to be (un)helpful.

An FOI request has revealed ICO internal communications suggesting a “suite of provisions” focused on reducing the impact of requests on public bodies and the ICO.

Suggestions included:

• Restricting requests to UK residents and foreign residents who have the right to vote in the UK
• Making requesters provide a physical address
• Requiring people to provide ID when making requests
• Requiring people to say a request is an FOI for it to be treated as one
• Letting public bodies mandate a single electronic route for requests (like a web form), possibly with a word limit
• Limit the number of requests per year to individual public bodies (it suggests five)
• Allowing individuals, and not just requests, to be declared vexatious
• Letting public bodies refuse requests where there is little public interest in disclosure. Or let the ICO refuse to investigate complaints about such requests
• When the ICO reaches an opinion on a case in a round robin, allowing it to serve that on other public bodies that have received the same request
• Removing the right of appeal to the First Tier Tribunal (FTT). Appeals against decision notices would only be to the Upper Tier Tribunal (UTT) on a point of law (similar to the procedure in Scotland)

If we’re all good and tighten up our annoying requests, the ICO could see removing or limiting the public interest test extension and making a 20 working day internal review deadline statutory.

Why these aren’t great ideas

As Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information points out: “Several of the proposals would probably have only have a minor impact on request numbers but add to officials’ workload”.

Checking addresses, residency requirements, and IDs “would create an enormous administrative burden and would be unfair and excessive in GDPR terms”, according to Tim Turner on FOI Daily.

George Greenwood, investigative reporter at The Times, said limiting requests per authority would hit narrowly focussed campaign groups hard. He highlights how the Infected Blood campaign relied heavily on FOI to win their campaign for compensation.

Declaring a person, rather than a request, vexatious could amount to a banning them from using the FOI Act. An FTT has previously said, if someone stops sending confusing, overlapping, accusatory requests and actually sends something polite and answerable, they should get a proper response. The system needs to allow for people to learn and grow (even if they’re really annoying right now).

Refusing to deal with requests that are not sufficiently in the public interest could mean no answers on serious matters. Maurice suggests issues such as unfair dismissal or nuisance neighbours could be affected.

The ICO’s brainstorming admits letting public bodies decide on whether something is in the public interest might have problems. It could be “prone to abuse” (you don’t say). There would be issues around setting an objective test/assessment for this (which just sounds like extra work for everyone and kind of defeats the purpose).

Am I the problem?

Making one decision notice apply to multiple public bodies with round robin requests sounds specific. Probably unrelated, I had four decision notices from a batch of complaints about small numbers refusals at the end of April.

This may or may not work as intended. But, from personal experience, the issue isn’t getting several decision notices. It’s having to make endless complaints about the same issues.

If the ICO’s role is to promote good practice, it’s doing a lousy job.

I shouldn’t still be getting small numbers refusals that contain no reference to the exemption relied on and/or where basic maths reveals the small number.

Leicestershire claimed they had to suppress numbers below five because it was good practice in line with ICO/DfE [Department for Education] guidance. The specific guidance they linked to has a foreword from Christopher Graham (two Commissioners ago, left in 2016).

It’s not the current guidance. It’s about three UTT decisions out of date.

If the FOI officers at Leicestershire County Council don’t know this, the ICO is failing. If it would like to get fewer complaints, it might want to spend a bit more time on this and less on coming up with unasked for ways to make FOI requests harder to make.

Not keen on this one either

Another suggestion that feels kind of like a personal attack is making everyone make requests through an online form. I’m not a fan, I’ve complained about public bodies that try to force people to use them, and unlike the ICO, I don’t think it would be to the benefit of requesters to go down this route.

This one is somewhat personal preference but there’s good reasons for wanting to be able to keep correspondence in your own email account. Like when you send lots of requests and lots of complaints. And I’m not sure I trust the permanence of responses held in such online systems.

So why is the ICO doing this?

The freelance transparency crackdown seems to have come at about the same time the UK Government was anonymously briefing about potentially cutting the cost limit for responding to FOI request. It’s not clear if there’s any connection, or it’s just a coincidence.

The ICO has said this was an internal sharing of ideas in response to public bodies telling it they’re getting more requests and the ICO getting more complaints, according to a post from Jon Baines, senior data protection specialist at Mishcon de Reya.

The ICO didn’t respond to his question about whether its role included proposing changes to how the FOI Act works.

As Jon points out, the most concerning aspect here is the lack of transparency. Instead of having an open debate, it, ironically, took an FOI to find out what the ICO had been doing.

Freedom of Information restrictions in action

If you want a warning about the consequences of restricting the right of people to access information through FOI…

The Ontario government pushed through restrictions on FOI. And information is getting harder to get (and the public is less informed as a consequence).

More than 70% of hospitals in the Canadian province are forecasting deficits. The health minister Sylvia Jones told them to come up with three-year plans to balance their budgets. Within those “high risk” moves with service impacts for patients should only be considered if all lower-risk options were exhausted.

The Canadian Press filed an FOI request in November for documents relating to the plans.

The Ministry of Health gave themselves a 90-day extension to turn over the records, until March 10. No response came by that date and requests for updates went unanswered.

In the meantime, a bill to put the records of the premier, cabinet ministers and their staff outside of the reach of FOI became law. That law is retroactive, back to 1988.

The Ministry of Health has now said that law prevents the (conveniently overdue) release of the documents about hospital budget plans.

A really expensive way to get no info

Similarly, half of the documents in another request immediately became exempt when the law came into force.

In March, journalist Carly Penrose asked for records held by the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Mines regarding lobbying on mining claims and access to the Ring of Fire region in Northern Ontario.

The initial response was the request result in more than 1,400 pages of results, take an extra 120 days and cost at least $180. After offering to reduce the scope of the request, she got an email saying, because of the legislation change, the request was likely to still incur the same search fee but most, if not all, of the records could be exempt.

Of the 1,414 pages relevant to the request, 744 were held by minister’s offices and were immediately exempt. The other 670 would need to be checked to see if they could be released or not.

There’s a risk that requesters face high search costs to look through documents, most of which then end up being withheld.

Better as an FOI

One way to reduce FOI requests might be to just answer the question (especially when it’s a timely enquiry from a journalist).

Warwickshire Police missed the chance to charge a drink driver after the arresting officer overlooked a blood results email showing he was over the limit and had drugs in his system. The case progression officer neglected to chase the matter or alert superiors, despite the six-month deadline fast approaching.

Asked about other similar cases, the force said 98.7% of drink-driving cases had been processed “within the statutory time limit of prosecutions” from the start of 2023 until the end of 2025. That turned out to be 16 out of 1,207 cases missing the deadline.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service requested details including the month and year, alcohol level and reason for the missed deadline in each of the remaining 15 cases.

The force’s communications department suggested these enquiries were “best suited as FOI (freedom of information) requests”.

When pressed, Warwickshire Police fell short of outright declining to respond but reiterated that it would be “best suited as FOI”, noting that supplying the information would “require substantial data acquisition and detailed analysis”.

The usefulness of FOI releases

An argument for the importance of FOI is released information can help drive better decision-making.

Not sure they were thinking 2027 tour dates for Oasis.

Ahead of the Edinburgh leg of the Oasis tour, council documents released under FOI noted “medium to high intoxication” should be expected at the concert, and that there was some “concern about crowds of Oasis on weekends as they are already rowdy, and the tone of the band”.

Liam Gallagher described Edinburgh Council as “a bunch of snakes” on the first night of shows at Murrayfield Stadium, and said the band was “still waiting for our apology”.

Asked this week if he still had beef with Edinburgh council this week Liam replied: “Not playing there that’s for sure”. He later teased on X: “How you feeling about us possibly playing Celtic park [Glasgow]”.

This week’s Freedom of Information stories…

Battery fires

Fire brigades across the UK are tackling lithium-ion battery fires at a rate of one every five hours, figures show, as fire chiefs warn that public awareness and government regulation have not kept pace with the ubiquity of this new hazard.

Lithium-ion batteries power most rechargeable devices including mobile phones, electric toothbrushes, toys and vapes, as well as ebikes, e-scooters and electric vehicles.

Data gathered by the global business insurer QBE via freedom of information requests reveals that fire brigades were called to 1,760 fires linked to lithium-ion batteries in 2025, equating to 4.8 fires a day, an increase of 147% over the past three years.

Electric vehicle fires rose by 133% over the same period, while the number of electric vehicles on UK roads tripled during that time.

Racial abuse

The BBC submitted Freedom of Information requests to all NHS hospital and mental health trusts in England to ask how many times staff had reported being racially abused by a patient.

From the 106 trusts which provided data, there were 8,235 such reports in 2024, a 17% increase on the 7,002 reports in 2023. Several trusts did not record reports of racism prior to 2023, meaning older comparison figures are not available, but campaigners claim the issue has been growing for several years.

Social media crime

In the West Midlands, there was an over 200% increase in social media user data being used to solve criminal investigations between 2020 and 2025.

Figures released by West Midlands Police under the Freedom of Information act shows Snapchat saw the largest increase in crimes recorded between 2020 and 2025, with an increase of around 540% (310 to 1,985).

No rest

New Freedom of Information data from Police Oracle shows police forces across the UK now owe their officers nearly 820,000 rest days – the equivalent of 2,240 years of lost time with families, lost recovery, and lost wellbeing.

The Metropolitan Police alone owes 215,075 rest days – 589 years’ worth – averaging 6.5 days owed per officer.

The other two of the biggest forces in the country, West Midlands Police and Greater Manchester Police follow with 59,983 and 51,759 rest days owed, respectively.

Child exploitation

The PSNI did not refer a single child arrested during the Ballymena riots into the government mechanism used to identify victims of child criminal exploitation, despite concerns that young people were groomed or coerced into violence.

A third of those arrested following disorder in Ballymena and other towns last year were children, accounting for 33 out of 100 arrests.

Meeting notes obtained through Freedom of Information requests show police and statutory agencies discussed concerns that some young people involved may have been victims of child criminal exploitation (CCE).

Parking scams

Parking scams involving phony QR codes have increased fourteen-fold in the past three years, new data shows.

Unsuspecting motorists scan these codes to pay for parking but are instead redirected to fraudulent websites designed to steal payment details.

In 2022, only nine cases of the scam were reported with a total loss of £322. But last year that number had shot up to 133 reports, with victims losing £29,682.

The data, found through a Freedom of Information request submitted by Ailsa Reliability Solutions, represents a 1,300 per cent increase in reports.

Empty buildings

Sometimes no answer to your FOI is the answer (particularly when the answer is ‘maybe you should have this information?’).

Croydon Council has no central system for tracking the borough’s long-term vacant buildings and stalled development sites, a Freedom of Information (FOI) response has revealed.

The recent FOI response confirmed the council does not operate any standalone process to identify empty properties or paused construction projects across the borough. Furthermore, it revealed council officials do not currently maintain any internal lists, dashboards, or schedules to track the neighbourhood impact of these incomplete projects.

Without this centralised system, the council currently relies on a more ad hoc approach to identifying unused spaces and abandoned plots. ‌

Council sell-off

Public assets worth more than £1.2m were sold by Redcar and Cleveland Council the last financial year – with the prospect of more sales to come.

‌A recent presentation to council committee members said the local authority was focusing primarily on properties valued at more than £100,000 with a review having taken place as part of a disposal strategy. Meanwhile, another £213,000 worth of sales were due to take place “imminently”.

‌Separately, the Local Democracy Reporting Service has received information from the BBC, based on freedom of information requests to councils in England and Wales, showing that in Redcar and Cleveland between 2010 and 2025 almost 200 council assets were disposed of. This included schools, a health centre and former community centre, allotments and a museum, along with plots of land and buildings deemed to be surplus to requirements.

Council tax enforcement

Bailiffs were sent to Herefordshire residents to collect council tax funds on more than 4,000 occasions in one year.

In the county, bailiffs were called to residents on 4,351 occasions between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026, according to a recent Freedom of Information request.

The figure is nearly unchanged from 2022 to 2023, when 4,370 cases were referred for enforcement.

Repair bills

Only five police stations in Scotland are currently rated as being in a good condition according to a shock new report.

‌The survey also found that five times as many police offices – 27 – were in a poor state meaning the buildings are showing major defects or not functioning properly. While 158 were rated as merely satisfactory and showing signs of deterioration.

‌The figures from a report by Police Scotland released under Freedom of Information show that £231 million is now needed to repair the country’s crumbling cop shops.Trai

Train fine

A railway firm has made revenue in the tens of thousands from penalty fares on Cumbrian routes since 2023, a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request has revealed.

The FOI, submitted to Northern Rail by the News & Star, has revealed that the firm made £23,796.45 in penalty fares and prosecution revenue between 2023 and 2025.

A grand total of 675 penalty fare notices were handed out between 2023 and 2025, 365 in 2023; 245 in 2024 and 65 in 2025.

Drink-driving

Analysis of driving license data by the RAC revealed that 217,757 have a ‘DR10’ endorsement and another 2,881 have ‘DR20’ offences on their current motoring record – taking the total to 220,638.

DR10 convictions are issued to those caught over the legal alcohol limit while a DR20 relates to those found to be unfit and impaired at the wheel due to alcohol, regardless of whether they were over the limit or not.

The RAC’s freedom of information request to the DVLA found that 2,553 individuals have accrued three or more DR10 or DR20 endorsements since 2014.

Bank vs agency

Data from freedom of information requests indicate some NHS trusts are paying substantially more for ‘bank’ staff than for agency workers, despite long-standing government claims that reducing agency use would save money.

An NHS “bank” refers to a temporary staffing pool of healthcare workers (nurses, doctors, admin, etc) who take flexible shifts on an as-needed basis to cover shortages.

At Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, which reported no off-framework agency use, the average cost of the five most expensive bank shifts was £5,723 in 2024-25 and £5,622 in 2025-26. By comparison, the five most expensive agency shifts averaged £4,491 and £4,642 respectively.

Police misconduct

A record number of cops were sacked last year for gross misconduct, shock figures reveal. Fourteen officers were dismissed in 2025, compared with six the year before and three in 2023.

‌The figures, released by Police Scotland under Freedom of Information, have been recorded since 2015 and are the highest in that period.

Stray dogs

The dog marketplace, puppies.co.uk analysed data from Freedom of Information requests sent to Wigan Council.

They asked the council for the number of dogs reported as strays, the number of dogs seized, and the number of stray dogs returned to their owners from January 2021 to December 2025.

In total, 1,314 stray dogs have been reported across the region. Of that number, just 393 have been returned to their owners, meaning that only 29 per cent of stray dogs find their way back home.

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The post Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 15/5/2026 – #FOIFriday first appeared on Words + Numbers.

Jump to this week’s FOI stories…

And try to make sure the FOI officer on the other end also knows what you’re asking for. And hope that the pair of you don’t end up at total cross-purposes.

Or you’re likely to end up with every 25th person in the Home Counties involved in a road accident.

This one is almost an FOI request that doesn’t need an FOI request. Which also makes it possible to check the numbers.

The number of crashes on Wiltshire’s roads has increased in recent years – and the most common causes have been revealed. New data shows a five per cent rise in road traffic collisions across the county, with 7,415 accidents recorded between 2023 and 2025. A Freedom of Information request to Wiltshire Police, submitted by Accident Claims Advice, revealed that the most common cause of these incidents was “failure to look properly” by drivers, riders, or pedestrians.

The clue that the data in this story might not be that reliable is 69,539 collisions in Thames Valley between 2023 and 2025. That’s 64 road accidents a day. Or one for every 27 people aged 17 and over.

What data do you want? What data did they send?

Pretty detailed police data on road traffic collisions is regularly published. And it doesn’t match the numbers in this story.

Only half of 2025 data has been published but it and the 2023 and 2024 data suggest about 1,300 road traffic collisions a year in Wiltshire. Which is about half the numbers Accident Claims Advice have.

So what’s going on? Helpfully, the FOI response is on Wiltshire Police’s disclosure log.

The question does ask “How many road traffic accidents were reported during the last three years?”. But then it asks for it broken down by the age group of the person at fault. Then talks about underage drivers (who are under 16, for reasons?!).

This really should have been clarified at this point.

Instead the FOI officer pressed on. It does say the request should have been refused due to Section 12 (that’s not the reason most of it should have been refused). And says for Q2, the force doesn’t record the ‘at fault’ person for statistical purposes in relation to the most common causes of traffic accidents.

This didn’t ring any alarm bells about the response to Q1 (sent as a gesture as goodwill) and what the figures might refer to (a count of drivers not collisions).

You can get these numbers for 2023 and 2024 from the open data. If you don’t want to dig through the open data files, there’s a tool to filter the data.

Honestly, this one should have been a Section 21/Section 22 refusal for everyone’s sake. It would have saved about 18 hours of work (apparently). And getting the data themselves from the online tool or the data files might have cleared up what data Accident Claims Advice was actually looking at.

Latest FOI Figures

The latest FOI figures for central government are out. And nearly 100,000 requests were made to those departments and bodies last year.

The statistics show 94,526 FOI requests were received in 2025, up from 83,041 in 2024. The 14% year on year increase is the biggest annual rise since the Act was introduced. The number of requests is now more than double the 44,195 made in 2020.

More requests were answered in time. The knock-on impact of that seems to be a higher proportion of requests both answered in full (up from 29% to 36%) and withheld in full (up from 30% to 35%). That’s mostly because the proportion of requests sitting unanswered dropped from 26% to 8%.

And in long-running Freedom of Information stories…

FOI enforcement doesn’t stop in the pre-election period.

The Scottish Government missed deadlines to release information relating to one of the FOIs about an investigation into Nicola Sturgeon’s conduct in relation to complaints about her her predecessor Alex Salmond.

The Scottish Information Commissioner launched contempt of court proceedings over the delays. The case is apparently set to be heard next Wednesday (May 6), the day before the Scottish Parliament elections.

FOI changes that will make accessing information more difficult in Ontario have become law. But a campaign group is planning to launch a legal challenge.

Democracy Watch, a non-profit citizen group based in Ottawa, tried and failed to obtain an injunction last week before the bill received Royal Assent.

The group is now planning to file a constitutional challenge arguing the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in a few different cases that voters have a right to disclosure of government information that voters need to have meaningful debate about public issues. It’s also questioning whether the government can pass retroactive laws to overturn court decisions directed at members of cabinet.

This week’s Freedom of Information stories…

Intimate images

Five years ago, Cosmopolitan UK partnered with the domestic abuse charity Refuge on ‘The Naked Threat’ campaign, a tireless push to make threats to share intimate images illegal. Their efforts resulted in a monumental victory: the ‘threat to share’ offence was officially written into the Domestic Abuse Act of 2021.

But on the fifth anniversary of that landmark legislation, alarming new data reveals a broken justice system for women.

Freedom of Information requests submitted by Refuge to 43 police forces across England and Wales (and to which 27 responded) paint a bleak picture. Between July 2021 and February 2026, an overwhelming 21,905 intimate image abuse offences were recorded. Yet, a shocking 95.2% of these cases resulted in zero accountability, with only 4.8% (1,047) of perpetrators actually charged or summonsed.

Doctor cover

Almost half of hospital trusts have been asking non-doctors to fill in on medical rotas, according to FoI (Freedom of Information) requests lodged by the BMA.

The association had responses from 85 of 202 trusts in the UK, with 41 (48 per cent) confirming they permit AP (advanced practitioners) to cover doctors’ rota gaps.

APs are healthcare professionals with backgrounds including nursing, paramedic, physiotherapy and pharmacy. While many are experienced in their base profession, working on medical roles is beyond their scope of practice.

Missed follow-ups

More than 2,000 psychiatric patients across Scotland have waited longer than two weeks for follow-up care after being discharged from hospital, according to new figures obtained through freedom of information requests.

The data, compiled by the Scottish Liberal Democrats, suggests that a key mental health standard, intended to ensure patients are contacted within seven days of leaving inpatient care, is being routinely missed.

Costly kennels

Prosecutors spent nearly half a million pounds in two years looking after 68 danger XL bullies. Figures obtained by the Sunday Mail show the number of banned breed dogs involved in live criminal court cases which have been cared for in police kennels since new laws came into force.

‌Figures obtained via a freedom of information request show Crown Office officials spent £203,824 between February 2024 and the end of March last year, with an ­additional £279,028 for XL bully kennelling from April 1 last year to March 31. Figures do not include the number of XL bullies kept in police kennels that are stray, ­abandoned or whose owner can’t be established.

Dog attacks

Dog attacks have nearly doubled since the pandemic with more than three occurring an hour on our streets and in our homes.

In 2025 alone, new data obtained by the Mirror reveals, at least 29,400 out-of-control dog attacks causing injury offences were recorded by police, equivalent to 81 a day, or 3.4 every hour. The massive number is a significant five percent increase on the already high number of attacks recorded in 2024 – the year violent XL Bully dogs were banned – when police logged 28,000 attacks.

The figures show an increase in the number of dog attacks since 2020, when 16,040 were recorded, up to 19,762 in 2021, 21,700 in 2022, and 27,000 in 2023. They have been released thanks to exclusive Mirror Freedom of Information requests made to every police force in the country.

Long waits

As of the end of March 2026, 1,304 women were awaiting a gynaecological surgical procedure with NHS Tayside – with some having waited around three years or longer.

‌And 842 women were awaiting an urgent gynaecology outpatient appointment and face the longest wait of any NHS Tayside specialty for an outpatient appointment.

‌The figures were released to the Perthshire Advertiser following a Freedom of Information request; the health board said the long waits are due to demand increasing “significantly” over the past five years.

Worst parkers

Cumberland Council has revealed details about its worst parking offenders.

A Freedom of Information request has shown the area’s worst offender for parking tickets in the 2025 calendar year, and a long-standing, persistent evader who still owes thousands of pounds in fines.

A Vauxhall received 43 Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) in 2025, mainly on Station Street in Cockermouth, fines totalling £2,150.

Banned

Feeding the birds, blackberry foraging and picking up stones are among everyday activities banned by town halls accused of ‘abusing’ sweeping powers.

A report has found that Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) – originally designed to tackle serious anti-social behaviour – are being used to ‘criminalise’ a wide range of everyday activities.

Researchers found 91 per cent of 297 councils which responded to Freedom of Information requests now have at least one PSPO in place.

Dump for sale

King Charles’s private estate tried to sell land that was contaminated with a large rotting illegal waste dump to a local authority, it has emerged.

In January, a 25,000-ton site described as the UK’s “worst illegal waste dump” in Bickershaw, Wigan, was revealed to be largely on land owned by the Duchy of Lancaster, the King’s extensive private portfolio of properties and estates.

Previously, the Duchy said it had offered to transfer the land to Wigan Council in July last year.

However, a Freedom of Information Request by Channel 4 News found that the Duchy tried to sell the site to the local authority at full market price.

Compensation

South Ayrshire Council has paid over £42,000 in compensation to one teacher in the last five years following assault claims, new data has revealed.

A response to a Freedom of Information request by the Advertiser shows that a total of £42,500 has been awarded to one education staff member for an “alleged assault by a pupil”.

The local authority was asked about the number of claims made by teachers or teaching assistants for injuries sustained in schools or on school trips due to pupil violence.

Road closure

A town council has been warned over an “illegal” and “unauthorised” closure of its high street for a winter festival.

Last year Beaumaris cancelled its Victorian Christmas. The organising committee – made up of volunteers – blamed rising costs, falling revenue and capacity issues.

But later on in the year Beaumaris Town Council announced it was staging “Winterfest”. The two day event took place at the end of November with an ice rink, Christmas market and parade. This included a road closure to allow the event to happen.

However a Freedom of Information request has revealed that the Highway Authority (Anglesey Council) did not grant permission for the event organisers to close any roads. It said the authority “has written to Beaumaris Town Council to formally express its concern that Castle Street was obstructed / closed illegally in order to host the Winterfest Parade 2025”.

Living wages

At least twelve Oxford colleges were not paying all staff the Oxford Living Wage (OLW) as of their most recent financial year, Cherwell can reveal.

Balliol, Brasenose, Harris Manchester, Oriel, Regent’s Park, St Anne’s, St Catherine’s, St Edmund Hall, St Hilda’s, St Peter’s, Trinity, and Wolfson all paid their lowest-earning employees less than £13.16 per hour, the OLW set for 2025-26. Reuben has not yet responded to Cherwell’s Freedom of Information request.

Paying with Paddington

Sir David Attenborough, Paddington Bear and Sir Winston Churchill have emerged among the most popular public suggestions for new banknote designs.

The suggestions were revealed as part of a freedom of information request, which was submitted after the new wildlife theme announced by the Bank of England was criticised by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as being “woke”.

Sir Winston, who currently features on the £5 note, was the fourth most commonly suggested idea.

Meanwhile, Sir David, the esteemed broadcaster and environmental advocate, who is due to celebrate his 100th birthday next month, also featured prominently among the top submissions.

More than 1,000 ideas were related to the wildlife theme, making it the most popular topic.

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The post Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 1/5/2026 – #FOIFriday first appeared on Words + Numbers.

Jump to this week’s FOI stories…

Former BBC journalist and British Journalism Award nominee Barnie Choudhury has been hit with a claim of £14,270.70 by the appointments body for judges in relation to enforcement action over a First Tier Tribunal (FTT) FOI decision.

He had submitted multiple FOI requests that formed the basis of more than 23 published stories scrutinising the work of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), an independent body responsible for selecting candidates for judicial office in England and Wales.

The case follows earlier tribunal proceedings in which the JAC was ordered to disclose recruitment material, after the tribunal found that a transparent judicial appointments process was in the public interest.

Now the JAC is claiming Choudhury “acted unreasonably” by threatening to pursue contempt of court proceedings when it failed to comply with a tribunal order to disclose information under the FOI act.

He withdrew his Contempt of Court action against the JAC in September 2025 once he had enough information to continue reporting, “even though the JAC had not fully complied with the decision notice”, he said.

A hearing about the costs claim will take place before the FTT on 29 April.

Chilling effect

Choudhury strongly rejects the costs application, describing it as unlawful and retaliatory.

Laura Davison, NUJ general secretary, said attempts to recover costs in this way were “highly unusual” and warned of wider consequences if the application succeeds. “If the JAC’s application is upheld, it would create a significant new risk for journalists using FOI requests to hold power to account and add to the weaponry of those who use SLAPPs [Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation] to silence media scrutiny,” she said.

Dawn Alford, Chief Executive of the Society of Editors, said: “Pursuing a journalist for significant costs in these circumstances sends a stark message: challenge authority, and you may pay the price. That creates a chilling effect on investigative reporting, particularly for freelancers and smaller publishers without the backing of large organisations.”

‘Highly unusual’ is right

This isn’t a usual FOI case – very few people take complaints about requests to a tribunal. It’s not a significant risk to most journalists using FOI requests.

For context, I send a lot more FOI requests than the average journalist, and make many more complaints to the ICO. But I’ve only had two cases go to the FTT.

There’s no cost involved in making a complaint to the ICO. If it issues a Decision Notice and a public body doesn’t comply, it’s the ICO’s job to enforce the Decision Notice. It’s the one that can go to court to have the public body held in contempt (it doesn’t, but it can).

So for the vast majority of journalists using FOI to hold power to account, the threat of a costs order in this case creates absolutely no additional risk.

Any chilling effect is probably more likely to be felt by people considering pursuing contempt of court proceedings for any failure to comply with a court order.

Costs and Tribunals

Tim Turner, at FOI Daily, points out that tribunals are courts and come with the risk of cost awards. However, this shouldn’t put people off taking an FOI complaint to the tribunal if they think the case is strong enough.

Any risk should be very low. The vast majority of FTT hearings (including those in the General Regulatory Chamber where FOI cases are heard) are on a ‘no cost shifting’ basis. So everyone is responsible for their own costs. The winner can’t claim their costs from the loser.

In terms of FOI hearings, the FTT can only really make a cost order if a party has acted unreasonably in bringing, defending or conducting the proceedings. This is why the JAC is claiming Choudhury “acted unreasonably”.

Unreasonable here is likely to be a high bar. The test used in previous cases has been: “would a reasonable person acting reasonably have acted in this way? Is there a reasonable explanation for the conduct in issue?”.

Litigants in person will generally get slightly more leeway. Courts expect to deal with only the “clearest cases” to avoid time-wasting.

If you appeal an FOI case to the Upper Tier Tribunal, the same rules around cost orders as in the FTT will apply.

Hopefully, the JAC’s case is swiftly dismissed. On the facts so far shared (JAC didn’t disclose information FTT said it should by date it should, Choudhury starts contempt of court action to get it to do so, he withdraws action when some of the information is disclosed), there appears no unreasonable actions here.

Freedom of Information restricted

The Ford government has pushed through its controversial changes to freedom of information laws in Ontario.

The changes will stop the release of any messages involving ministers and staff. It’s also retroactive, affecting ongoing requests for documents from the Ford government and hitting three ongoing court decisions as well as multiple appeals.

The changes were very much pushed through. The FOI changes had been added into Ontario’s 2026 budget bill. The bill had passed a second reading at the start of April and been referred to committee (usually where bills are examined in detail and can be amended).

But on Tuesday, the Government voted to skip the committee stage and go straight to a third reading. The third reading was then scheduled for Wednesday evening.

The vote on the bill then passed after being deferred to Thursday lunchtime, the day before the legislature heads off for a week-long break.

Once the bill receives royal assent, it will become law. No date has so far been set for that.

Not only does this bill make it harder to hold the government to account (it’s basically designed to do that), there’s the issue of getting it reversed.

It’s not a popular move (though how much it resonates with the wider public is unknown). Promising to overturn it may form a useful part of campaigning if the government is seen as corrupt or hiding things. But the temptation to leave it as is may prove too tempting for others once they’re in government.

FOI-based scrutiny for thee, not for me

Politicians don’t like to be held to account. Hating Freedom of Information is a convenient outlet for that.

A few weeks back the Government decided to do some anonymous briefing about too many FOI requests, possibly all from Chinese spies using AI to access state secrets. Since then it’s not exactly denied that it might like to restrict FOI, possibly by cutting the time limit.

Ben Worthy, an academic who researches FOI, argues in The House magazine that part of the reason for another round of trying to crack down on FOI is politicians just don’t like the transparency the Act is trying to bring.

But also that they buy into a version of FOI where it’s an annoying burden. He suggests senior politicians likely only see complicated, controversial requests or the ones directly about them. They’ve also bought into a view that governing would be easier without it getting in the way.

I think this almost gets to why politicians are fine with the existence of the FOI Act when they’re in opposition. And then a lot less keen on FOI when they’re in government.

FOI can be a great tool for holding Governments to account. Brilliant for opposition politicians, with the added bonus that doing this can increase their chances of winning over voters.

But being on the receiving end of a freedom of information request about your work sucks. Nobody’s likely to enjoy a document dive trying to find out where you messed up.

But, as former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne had argued in relation to Doug Ford’s attempt to restrict FOI there, it comes with the job. It’s important – the public should be able to find out what’s going on, either through their own requests or via those made by opposition parties, journalists, and so on.

Hopefully weakening Freedom of Information is hard

Previous attempts to change the FOI Act to make it harder to get information have not had much success.

As The House article points out having a review of how the Act is working runs the risk it just comes back saying everything is mostly fine (statutory time limit for internal reviews when?).

Trying to undermine the Act by being difficult (slowing down responses to requests) or evasive (using personal WhatsApp accounts and deleting messages) would probably be easier if you didn’t have an Information Commissioner that’s actually issuing enforcement notices after years of inaction. Or a Scottish Information Commissioner who seems to like picking fights with the Scottish Government.

Making smaller changes like cutting the time limit or charging for requests might be possible to do but they’re not likely to be popular (or actually successful in reducing the impact of FOI). Trying to “create a sense that FOI is a ‘problem’, rather than a democratic right” could work or risks the opposite effect.

FOI is almost certainly more popular than the current Labour Government. And it’s popular with opposition politicians (for now at least) and journalists who are already making lots of noise opposing any potential changes. While the Government has the option to make changes using secondary legislation without much parliamentary scrutiny, it’s whether it thinks it can weather any blowback.

Lots of FOI requests? Have you tried publishing things?

Speaking to councillors at a scrutiny panel, Middlesbrough Council director of adult social care Louise Grabham described how the council is “absolutely inundated” by FOI requests “which take up so much time to respond to”, so the council is looking how more data can be readily published.

When there are themes and trends being requested, she argued that such data should be published openly, so people can be directed to such information, rather than the council needing to repeatedly send out the same statistics.

In terms of sharing information in a way that would help avoid requests, Middlesbrough’s open data and FOI pages aren’t bad (especially compared to some public bodies). But if it has an FOI disclosure log, it’s not obvious where it is. Plus someone could do with going through and making sure things are updated (it’s a little hit and miss).

Still not learning…

You may have thought by now, with many high profile cases, people would have learned to check Freedom of Information responses before sending.

Personal information belonging to residents living in temporary homelessness accommodation was mistakenly attached to a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act response sent out by Barking and Dagenham Council, according to a recent report by Private Eye magazine.

The council seem to have been somewhat lucky in that the recipient quickly alerted it to the additional information sent. So personal information wasn’t also uploaded to a disclosure log or to WhatDoTheyKnow.

The list of names was unintentionally included when responding to a query about payments made by the council to private sector landlords for temporary accommodation.

The breach happened “because a spreadsheet was attached in error which still contained hidden source data that had not been properly deleted”. It stated the spreadsheet featured “around 6,500 lines” though not all entries included names and some were duplicates, adding that it was “not a full or definitive list of names”.

So most likely, someone created a pivot table to get the answer to the request and just copied it to a new sheet…as a pivot table. Double clicking on a pivot table will reveal the underlying data in it.

Paste values only solves this one really easily. Checking your file isn’t suspiciously big for a spreadsheet that’s only supposed to have a small table in it is another good idea. The ICO has a whole guidance page on avoiding this problem.

This week’s Freedom of Information stories…

Information breaches

Recorded data breach incidents at England’s largest local authorities have risen by more than 50% over the past five years, according to analysis of Freedom of Information data by password management company Passpack.

An examination of FOI responses from 78 councils shows that internally logged data incidents increased by 53% between 2021 and 2025, while the number of breaches reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) rose by 41% over the same period.

In the most recent reporting year, the councils collectively recorded 16,902 incidents, alongside 305 referrals to the ICO.

The increase may be down to better understanding of data security and more reporting of minor incidents and near-misses, as some councils claimed, but what counts as minor might be debatable…

Unreported information breaches

Barking and Dagenham said it did not believe the incident above warranted reporting to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the government’s data protection regulator. However, another request this week raises questions about how many, and what kinds of, incidents aren’t being reported.

A data breach which saw the entire contents of a rape survivor’s phone shared with her alleged attacker was just one of more than 4,700 incidents that Police Scotland decided were not serious enough to report to the information watchdog.

Last month, the Information Commissioner’s Office fined the force £66,000 after it wrongfully handed six unencrypted discs of detective constable Lianne Gilbert’s mobile phone data to her alleged rapist, his police federation representative and his solicitor in 2022.

In a letter, a police data officer said that the breach “did not meet the statutory notifiable requirements” for Police Scotland to report itself to the Information Commissioner (ICO).

A Freedom of Information request by STV News has revealed that 4,733 other incidents were also determined not to reach the threshold for reporting to the information watchdog over the last six years.

Project delays

Council reorganisations are set to take place across England in the next couple of years. So this story potentially works anyway facing a town hall shake-up.

Officials at Eastleigh Borough Council have warned that local government reorganisation (LGR) will have a negative effect on its “ability to deliver priority projects”.

The council’s risk register, obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service in a Freedom of Information request, says that the impending council shake-up could affect how quickly and effectively priority schemes are delivered.

Major projects being run by the Lib Dem-run council include the One Horton Heath housing scheme, which is set to deliver approximately 2,500 homes.

Weapons in schools

Knives, knuckledusters and a bullet are just some of the 29 weapons that were seized from children during a three-year period at schools in Northern Ireland.‌

A freedom of information request has revealed the numbers of weapons that have been seized by children at schools in Northern Ireland since the 2022/23 academic year. The youngest child that was found with a weapon was just 11 years old.

Housing need

People with the greatest housing needs are waiting months or even years in the highest priority bands of councils’ social housing registers in many parts of England, according to data compiled by The House.

Figures obtained by The House under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act focus specifically on people in each council’s highest priority band – which are meant to cater to the most severe housing needs – and separately those in each council’s second-highest priority band.

The figures show that applicants who were placed in social housing by 147 councils in 2024-25 had on average spent 319 days – around 10 months – in their council’s highest housing priority band. In 40 council areas the average wait in the highest priority band was more than a year.

Homelessness deaths

Some 56 homeless people in Edinburgh reportedly died in 2025, according to council data released under Freedom of Information legislation.

People in temporary accommodation made up 37 of the deaths, while those out of temporary accommodation made up 19.

The causes of the 56 total deaths were not reported in the response, but it is understood that at least some were due to natural causes.

Caught short

England is facing a public health crisis as a severe shortage of public toilets forces people to “suffer” across the country, health leaders have warned.

New analysis by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) reveals a “significant shortfall” in facilities, with numbers plummeting by 14 per cent since 2016.

The RSPH’s calculations show there are now 15,481 people for every public toilet in England.

The figure is based on data gathered from over 200 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests submitted to councils responsible for providing the amenities.

Underpaying bosses

More people are reporting their employers for underpaying staff, data shared exclusively with Sky News Money has shown.

A total of 7,622 tip-offs about bosses failing to pay workers the national minimum wage were made to HMRC last year, according to figures obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by TWM Solicitors.

That’s up 360% since 2020/21, when 1,656 reports were made to the tax office.

Social media ban

Campaigners have warned lawmakers against “rushing into” a ban on social media for under-16s after it emerged the Government has carried out no internal modelling of its key impacts.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) revealed it has “not done any modelling or analysis” on the impact such measures would have in areas such as mental health, access to news and how young people might bypass any restrictions.

In response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Press Association, the department said internal modelling had not been carried out because “clear, agreed evidence does not currently exist”.

Temporary staff

On the back of a tip off that the Council had been spending more on temporary staff that in previous years, the T&A sent an Freedom of Information request to Bradford Council asking how much money had been spent on temporary staffing, which includes causals, agency and consultancy staff.

It was revealed that in the most recent financial year, running from April, 6 2025 to April, 5 2026, £29,968,052 was spent on temps.

In the financial year 2023/24, £23,745,262 was spent, and in the financial year 24/25 it was £23,842,014.

Filling in

The FOI submitted by the News & Star, revealed that 52 people in the control room at Cumbria Police Headquarters are fully qualified as officers.

Cumbria Constabulary has about 1,440 police officers, the number of fully qualified members of staff in the control room is therefore about 3.6 per cent of the force.

When asked why officers are carrying-out civilian work when they could be in the community, a police spokesperson said that a decision was made to utilise police in a call handling function about 10 years ago.

“This was a result of both austerity and the need to reduce demand on front line officers” they said.

Teachers’ pensions

Nearly half a million teachers are being left in the dark over what pension they will be entitled to as they await new figures following a landmark discrimination ruling.

Public sector workers saw changes to their schemes in 2015 which made their pensions less generous, but a court case – known as the McCloud judgement – found that there had been age discrimination based on how some staff pensions had been revalued.

A fix called the McCloud remedy was announced back in 2021 but though the remedy affects 592,000 teachers, 449,330 are still awaiting their recalculations, according to a Freedom of Information request submitted by financial advice firm Wesleyan to the Government.

High hedges

There have been more than 50 complaints to Herefordshire Council about high hedges in the last three years.

A freedom of information request unveiled figures under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, which empowers local councils to resolve such disputes.

A “high hedge” refers to two or more mainly evergreen or semi-evergreen trees or shrubs over two metres tall acting as a barrier to light.

Dropped kerbs

Figures released under a Freedom of Information request show that Hampshire County Council received 1,378 vehicle access enquiries in 2025, generating £271,093 in fees—around £200 per application.

According to the council’s own guidance, a standard application costs £211.90, with an extra optional £97 for a fast-track decision—taking the total to £308.90. And there’s no guarantee of success.

Unpaid fines

The number of unpaid parking fines reaching the bailiff stage is on the rise, more than doubling between 2021 and 2025.

Freedom of Information data from Herefordshire County Council shows a steady increase in referrals to bailiffs over the past five years, rising from 1,559 in 2021 to 3,293 in 2025.

The council says that bailiff referrals are only made as a last resort after repeated attempts to resolve the debt directly with the motorist.

Electric roses

Barnsley town centre’s striking ‘Yorkshire Roses’ will use an estimated £38,000 of electric per year.

A full price breakdown of the new additions, on County Way, has been revealed in a Freedom of Information document.

Three sculptures – one of which is 15 metres tall and two of which are 12 metres – cost a total of £1.891m to create. More than £530,000 was spent on their inbuilt lighting and audio, as well as £216,000 on galvanisation and paint. Insurance costs £30,000 per year.

Fireworks

Herefordshire Council’s full ‘explosives register’ list was revealed after a freedom of information act request.

A response has been issued by Herefordshire County Council to this claim which shows that 31 businesses in total are legally able to sell fireworks.

These include four Aldi stores, two Morrisons stores, an Asda store, a Tesco store and a Lidl.

Picture by Pixabay on Pexels

The post Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 24/4/2026 – #FOIFriday first appeared on Words + Numbers.

Jump to this week’s FOI stories…

Following stories the UK Government is apparently considering cutting the cost limit for dealing with requests, MPs have been using parliamentary questions to check if this is an actual plan.

George Greenwood, investigative reporter at The Times, has a round-up of the, not exactly enthusiastically pro-FOI, responses on his blog. None of the answers amount to a denial of any plans to change the FOI Act. And the Cabinet Office press office didn’t say there were no plans when asked.

George’s view is MPs asking questions about this will make it a bit harder for the Government to try and make any changes to the FOI Act. As concerns about the threat has made it beyond the usual people (journalists who like FOI and the Campaign for Freedom of Information), any attempt is likely to face more pushback. Doesn’t mean the Government won’t try though.

Avoidable Freedom of Information requests

Given all the concern about the increasing volume of requests, it might be in the Government’s interests to avoid the ones it could.

The number of parliamentary questions, which allow MPs to get information from the Government on its policy and operation, have also increased in recent years. The House of Commons Procedure Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into how they’re working.

Evidence to the committee suggests MPs are resorting to using FOI to get information when their questions aren’t answered.

In theory, information that would be released under FOI should be included in an answer to a parliamentary question. But MPs complain they’re getting brushed off (including getting told to check documents and datasets that don’t contain what they’ve actually asked for).

As there’s no right to appeal with parliamentary questions, putting in an FOI for the information becomes the preferred option.

One other link between parliamentary questions and FOI is cost limits. The threshold for parliamentary questions is set at 140% of the FOI limit. If the Government did cut the FOI cost limit, it would impact here too.

FOI requests avoided

The plus of publishing more information is it saves you from receiving Freedom of Information requests for the same information.

Think how many requests from the Taxpayer’s Alliance have been avoided over the past 15 years since the Localism Act made it a requirement for councils in England to publish details of staff pay over £50,000.

Fishing trips

Random or speculative requests, particularly those likely to be time-consuming, sometimes get cited as a reason to restrict FOI.

But there can be good reasons for going broad and meandering.

An article looking at the problem of journalists inadvertently leading investigators to the sources passing them information includes an example where making ‘unusually precise’ FOI requests helped connect the dots.

More Freedom of Information improvements needed

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a load of practice recommendations to councils in the North West for not publishing statistics showing how they’re doing on answering FOI requests. The 10 councils were:

• Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council
• South Ribble Borough Council
• Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council
• Pendle Borough Council
• Hyndburn Borough Council
• Chorley Borough Council
• Cheshire West and Chester Council
• Cheshire East Council
• Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council
• Greater Manchester Combined Authority

The FOI code of practice says public bodies with more than 100 full-time equivalent employees should publish stats on things like how many requests they get, how many have been granted in full, and how many were answered in 20 working days. The statistics should be published on a quarterly basis.

The ICO seems to be working its way through public bodies checking they’re publishing FOI performance statistics. It previously issued practice notices to most of Northern Ireland’s government departments for the same issue.

Now there’s an idea…

Having previously appeared to suggest making a few FOI requests might be extremist behaviour, BBC thriller The Capture finished off its latest series implying you might need to resort to extortion to get your FOI request answered in 20 working days.

Although, given the police force involved was the Met, it might not be the worst plan…

In last Sunday’s episode, a dodgy journalist demands the press officer she’s blackmailing ‘fast-track’ an FOI request. The plot doesn’t reveal what, likely to get a Section 30/31 refusal, information was being sought.

This week’s Freedom of Information stories…

Unpaid

Freedom of Information requests are revealing more about the background to the fire that temporarily closed Glasgow Central rail station, causing massive travel disruption, and destroyed a listed building.

The Union Street fire started in a vape shop at 105 Union Street which had failed to pay almost £10,000 in non-domestic rates (NDR), commonly known as business rates.

In the wake of the fire, The Herald submitted a request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 asking Glasgow City Council how much it was owed in NDR, and the deficit for each of the last four years.

The local authority revealed it is currently owed a cumulative £88,799,117.54, having billed £1.4bn over the financial years of 2021-22 to 2024-25, meaning a little over 6% has gone uncollected.

The shop in question was also not legally registered to sell vapes.

The Herald asked Glasgow City Council for the total levied in fines against shops illegally selling vapes and/or tobacco, and how many businesses that applied to.

Between 2021-22 and 2025-26, a total of 49 businesses were fined for operating illegally. A total of £13,600 was levied, with no fines issued in the first year followed by £400 in 2022-23; £5000 in 2023-24; £5,800 in 2024-25; and £2,400 in 2025-26.

NHS jobs

Thousands of NHS staff at health trusts across England are to lose their jobs as employers struggle to balance their books, according to research.

Unison said its study estimates at least 21,000 roles are due to be cut by 2028 in hospitals and other health facilities.

The cuts were revealed by trusts in response to freedom of information requests by Unison and are in addition to job losses at NHS England and integrated care boards announced last year, it warned.

Compensation

The Prison Service has paid out compensation 53 times in the past three years to prisoners who were assaulted by staff in jails in England and Wales.

The payouts totalled £428,000, meaning the average payment was around £8,000. The bill was picked up by taxpayers.

The figures were disclosed by the Ministry of Justice following a Freedom of Information request by the Daily Telegraph. They cover the period from April 2023 to March 2026. Over the same period, there were 147 payouts totalling £10 million to prisoners assaulted by other prisoners, and 99 payouts totalling £6 million to staff assaulted by prisoners.

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment complaints within the Scottish Government have risen in recent years, according to new figures obtained by The Herald, amid mounting concerns over how misconduct is handled.

Data released under Freedom of Information laws shows nine formal allegations of sexual harassment raised by Scottish Government staff were recorded between 2022 and early 2025, with numbers increasing year on year.

Officials confirmed there were no recorded complaints in 2020 or 2021. One case was logged in 2022, rising to two in 2023 and three in both 2024 and 2025.

Police vetting

The PSNI has confirmed a total of 11 police officers have failed Developed Vetting (DV) procedures over the last five years.

DV, also known as Level 6 vetting within the PSNI, can only be applied for after passing the previous five levels of Police Vetting.

It is required for ‘designated roles’ and which can include the Public Protection Branch investigating child abuse or domestic abuse, Close Protection Unit, and those managing sensitive intelligence.

The figures were revealed in a Freedom of Information response which the PSNI partially answered as they were unable to categorically confirm if the officers in question remain in post after failed vetting.

Clean water

The monitoring of marine pollution by the Scottish Government’s green watchdog has been dubbed a “scandal” following the discovery that it rates 400 of Scotland’s coastal waters as being environmentally fine based on wildlife samples from just 54 of them.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) samples insects, crabs and worms from single sea lochs to classify as many as 20-40 other lochs as having a “good” or “high” environmental status. They can be up to 58 miles apart.

In response to a freedom of information request, Sepa released a large spreadsheet listing the coastal waters and firths which are “classified as part of a group”. It reveals that 87 per cent gain their good ratings from samples of wildlife taken from elsewhere.

Carers’ benefits

Thousands of unpaid carers could still be required to repay large, and potentially unfair, debts, as the government begins a review of past benefit cases.

On Monday (13th April), ministers launched an audit of more than 200,000 historical carer’s allowance cases. An estimated 25,000 carers who received unlawful overpayment demands since 2015 could see their debts reduced or cancelled.

A freedom of information request, published this month, revealed around 22,500 carers were given overpayment notices in the three months since an independent review was produced. The report, published in November, highlighted problems in the system caused ‘avoidable hardship and distress’ and led to public money being misspent.

The numbers included about 1,400 carers contacted in January 2025, even though the rules to calculate their debts had already been withdrawn by the Department for Work and Pensions.

SEND appeals

A local authority has spent more than £1m fighting legal cases against the parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the last four years, despite losing the majority of tribunals.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request found that 626 SEND tribunals had been lodged against West Northamptonshire Council between April 2023 and the end of January 2026.

SEND transport

A city councillor will no longer provide school transport services for the City of Doncaster Council after he claimed children are “often trained to comply” with special education needs criteria by their parents in order for them to receive benefits.

Councillor David Knight’s register of interests reveals he is a director for Ward Transportation Ltd, a position he states is “unpaid”.

A Freedom of Information response from the council in August 2025 revealed Ward Transportation Ltd was one of 32 firms the council used to provide school transport services to take children with SEND from their homes, to school, and back again.

Venue costs

The re-opening of the Guild Lounge in Preston as a temporary venue has been successful say Town Hall chiefs, despite it losing £70,000 in its first year.

A Freedom of Information request from Blog Preston shows the challenging environment for the foyer venue – which is currently recruiting for two staff members as it looks to adapt its theatre and live shows offering.

The first year of operating for the Guild Lounge, which began with a burst of shows but has since scaled-back the volume of live shows, saw it incur costs of £190,008 and it brought in income of £119,660 – a loss of £70,348.

Acid attacks

Latest figures from police forces that cover Staffordshire and Shropshire show a lack of suspects identified.

An investigation, launched through a series of Freedom of Information requests by Legal Expert, shows West Mercia Police recorded 12 acid attacks in the last three-years. But data shows that in 10 of those cases, investigations failed to identify a suspect.

School break-ins

A total of 221 burglaries and attempted burglaries were recorded at schools, colleges, and universities in Bradford between 2021 and 2025, according to new figures.

The data was gathered through a Freedom of Information request by Nothing But Padlocks.

Only six per cent of incidents (47 cases) in West Yorkshire resulted in a charge or summons.

Blocked roads

Landowners across the UK are blocking the delivery of 117 miles of traffic-free active travel routes, forcing locals to take matters into their own hands, according to campaigners behind a new toolkit designed to help rural communities push for greenways and active travel routes.

This week a new toolkit was launched by active travel campaigner, journalist, and road.cc contributor Laura Laker, entitled ‘Rural path campaigns: Where magic meets tarmac’, containing useful tips and case studies which aim to “empower” locals to create greenways in their areas.

A Freedom of Information request submitted as part of the project found that of 73 local authorities responsible for delivering greenways, land access is holding up delivery for 23 of them, totalling 117 miles of routes.

Car charging

New research by Vauxhall has found that 42% of councils will have cross-pavement charging available by the end of 2026.

Cross-pavement channel charging allows EV owners to safely charge their vehicles from their home by running a charging cable through a discreet, self-closing channel installed in the pavement to their home charging wall box.

Currently, seven councils out of the 134 which responded to the Freedom of Information request have live cross-pavement charging in their constituencies, with a further 21 in the trial stage, and 28 planning to roll out cross-pavement charging in 2026.

Stuck in A&E

More than 700 patients aged 95 and above waited longer than 12 hours at A&E last year, new figures show.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats said “catastrophic” waits in emergency rooms were “putting some of the country’s most vulnerable people at serious risk”.

A freedom of information request by the party found 736 people over the age of 95 waited more than 12 hours at A&E between January and October 2025.

Pigeons

Scotrail authorised almost 200 “pigeon culling” visits last year, a Freedom of Information request reveals.

The requests, sent by the Manchester Pigeon Rehab (MPR) group, found that in 2025 ScotRail ordered 196 visits to 29 stations and depots across Scotland.

Deer

Scotland’s publicly-funded forestry bodies have spent more than £134m controlling deer over the last decade, The Ferret can reveal.

Data obtained via freedom of information details the deer management bills footed by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) and Scottish Forestry, which are ultimately funded by the taxpayer.

It also specifies the huge stretches of deer fencing put up by FLS to contain the animals over seven years – equivalent to nearly triple the length of mainland Britain by road.

Spider bites

Hospital admissions from spider bites have doubled in England in the last decade, with experts blaming the rise on the “explosion” in the population of false widows.

Provisional NHS figures show there were 100 admissions as a result of “contact with or toxic effect of spiders” in 2025 compared with 47 in 2015, a freedom of information request obtained has revealed.

No cycling

A new Freedom of Information request sheds light on the demise of the RideLondon cycling festival.

London Marathon announced the festival’s “indefinite pause following operational and financial considerations of the event’s future direction” in February after having gone “on hiatus” in 2025.

Founded before the London 2012 Olympics, the festival at one point comprised men’s and women’s WorldTour races, sportives that imitated the Olympic Road Race course and visited several London landmarks, and the Brompton World Championships.

Struggles with funding and sponsorship, date clashes with Trooping the Colour, and the challenge of finding a suitable route due to Transport for London’s reluctance to close the newly-built Silvertown Tunnel for 15 hours all appear to have contributed to the event’s end.

Image by Inna Rabotyagina on Pexels

The post Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 17/4/2026 – #FOIFriday first appeared on Words + Numbers.

We’re now in the pre-election period for the Scottish, Welsh and local elections.

All the guidance is that the pre-election period, when some public bodies need to be careful about what they communicate, shouldn’t impact on FOI requests. But that hasn’t always been the case.

What is the pre-election period?

The pre-election period of sensitivity (to give it its full title) happens in the weeks before an election. It affects what ministers, civil servants and local government can say and do.  It used to be known as ‘purdah’ (we don’t call it that anymore).

For parliaments (UK and devolved administrations), the period generally starts once the parliament is dissolved. So in Scotland, it started on March 26 and in Wales, on April 8.

Local authorities are required to follow statutory guidance about publicity all year round. So the pre-election period is a period of ‘heightened sensitivity’.

This runs between the posting of notice of an election locally and the election itself. The posting of notice must be no later than 25 working days before polling day. For the May 7 election date, that was March 31.

What does it mean?

Generally during this period, ministers (including those in devolved administrations), civil servants and local government should exercise caution in making announcements or decisions that might have an effect on the election campaign.

What people in these roles can and can’t do is broadly governed by convention. It usually covers things like announcing new initiatives, launching consultations, or acting in a way that could be perceived as spending public money to influence the outcome of the election.

However, one thing they definitely can do is answer FOI requests:

Requests for factual information or freedom of information requests should be dealt with in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

House of Commons Library Research Briefing, Pre-election period of sensitivity

Making FOI requests during the pre-election period

According to the Scottish Information Commissioner, this means people can still request information from public bodies in the run-up to the election, and those bodies still have a duty to respond promptly and within the statutory maximum timescales – responses to requests should not be delayed because of the election.

At this point (April 15), there’s only 16 working days till election day. So responses sent now may not be back before the election, especially if they’re more complex (or the public body is particularly bad at responding in a timely fashion).

Requests from candidates might have better luck. Guidance for civil servants says where their requests can’t be answered quickly, FOI officers should offer advice and assistance on how to refine them for a faster response.

Does the pre-election period affect FOI requests?

It might mean your ‘not an FOI’ information request is now an FOI.

NHS Providers is recommending any requests for information during the pre-election period are treated as FOI requests.

“After the pre-election period begins, requests for new information are best handled by applying freedom of information (FOI) rules.”

This might be appealing. Following FOI rules means, in theory, all requests for information get treated the same. Information releases are because of statutory obligations and not driven by politics.

However, the political implications of an FOI response might cause hold-ups.

Guidance for staff in both the Scottish and Welsh parliaments says requests political implications should be discussed with more senior staff.

At best this means such requests are likely to take more time, just from waiting for more people to respond to questions. But the concern is, once you’ve got senior people involved in a potentially awkward FOI request, there’s a temptation to start bending the FOI rules (with delays and spurious refusals).

Also, if you wouldn’t have referred the FOI request to the department director outside of a pre-election period, would their potential influence on the released response count as political?

But the pre-election period really should have no impact

The ICO has had to issue a Decision Notice to a council for using the pre-election period as a reason to refuse a request (and this is useful to know if you run into a public body trying to do similar).

The requester asked for information about unpaid non-domestic rates. City of York Council said it couldn’t release the information as “it could affect public support for a particular party”, and suggested the requester make the same request after the election” (the exemption relied on was Section 44 – Prohibitions on disclosure).

When the ICO got involved it took the view that the prohibition on publication relates to material that is published by, or on behalf of, a local authority, information released under FOI is published on a statutory basis so that kind of disclosure can’t be “interpreted to be the same as the publication of material by the council itself”.

The council had also argued the requester was an active member of a political party and the information related to an ongoing campaign around non-domestic rates. The Commissioner said that wasn’t relevant.

So, with this Decision Notice, confirmation that FOI releases aren’t covered by the conventions governing other communications during the pre-election period, and that’s the case even if the requester is going to use the answer to campaign.

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Jump to this week’s FOI stories…

Well, if you’re MP Rupert Lowe it’s not a place to make FOI requests because WhatDoTheyKnow has suspended his account.

Some of the reporting makes it look like the ban was for making lots of requests (more than 1,000). But a few thousand requests over a couple of years isn’t necessarily that many if they’re mostly round robins (sending two to every council is around 700 requests).

The reason given for the suspension seems to be the leader of political party Restore Britain was using the account to send general messages to public authorities or for personal messages, rather than only to request specific information.

He appears to have had a Pro account (some of the requests have been made as batches, which is a Pro feature). Which means communication on more recent requests is likely to be non-public, so it’s not clear what the issue that led to the suspension was.

Mr Lowe has criticised the decision as “censorship” and “not in the spirit of transparency”.

But it doesn’t prevent him from continuing to make FOI requests.

By making them through WhatDoTheyKnow, you’re trading the convenience of the tools and platform the offer for having less control over the request process. You agree to the platform rules and they can suspend the account if they think you’ve broken them.

WhatDoTheyKnow hasn’t commented further on the suspension.

Other WhatDoTheyKnow-related enforcement action

The Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO) has been using poor response rates on WhatDoTheyKnow as the basis of enforcement action against some public bodies.

For both the Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust and the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, a review of requests on the site led to them being asked to provide FOI statistics.

Between October 2024 and March 18, 2026, the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust responded to just 54.5% of requests within the 20 working day time limit. It had a backlog of 432 requests, with the oldest dating back to October 2024.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Trust reported responding to 26% of requests in a timely manner, and had a backlog of 95 requests, with 35 over six months old. It had been without a dedicated FOI officer since September 2024.

Both trusts now need to come up with an action plan to tackle overdue requests and slow responses.

But…

Enforcement notices do at least put public bodies on notice that they need to improve their FOI performance. The issue is if that improvement doesn’t stick.

The Met Police was given an enforcement notice in May 2024 requiring it to clear a backlog of 362 overdue requests within six months. It also needed to come up with a plan to increase the proportion of requests answered in time from between 60% and 67%.

The action plan didn’t work and the backlog didn’t stay cleared.

The ICO has issued another enforcement notice as the response rate had crept up to 70.8% by February this year. It had a backlog of 106 requests with six over six months old.

The Met Police is hoping to answer 80% of requests on time by this time next year (2027). It can’t come up with a timeline for getting to 90%. Answering 90% of requests in time is regarded as adequate performance.

Since the FOI Act came fully into effect in 2005, the Met Police has never achieved an on-time response rate of better than 75.9% (achieved in 2015).

The ICO has said the police force now has to clear it’s backlog by October 1. It also has to answer at least 90% of requests on time for January to March next year and again for April to September.

Be nice to an FOI officer, skip a request

The vast majority of requests made through WhatDoTheyKnow are published publicly (and Pro requests are made public eventually). Which can make it a good resource for FOI stories.

It’s a good place for getting inspiration, finding out what information public bodies are likely to hold or not, and getting an idea of technical language used. But there’s no point sending the same request if someone’s already made it.

If you find an interesting response for your local area, that can form the basis of a news story. With a link back to the request on WhatDoTheyKnow.

Some stories via this route have been pet thefts in the West Midlands, the saga of bounced schools admission emails in Essex, the (lack of) personal information about a Westminster wardrobe, lots of train delays, and a potential Eurovision economic boost.

Is this Freedom of Information request relevant…

In Wales, one of Reform’s candidates in the Senedd elections has had multiple FOI requests refused as vexatious by Merthyr Tydfil Council.

Confusingly, they’re complaining about this on the Facebook page for the Afan Ogwr Rhondda (which covers Bridgend, Neath Port Talbot and RCT). Alongside lots of dodgy AI-generated graphics.

This might be because the branch chair there is standing in the neighbouring Pontypridd Cynon Merthyr constituency.

The reasons for the Section 14 refusal given by Merthyr are multiple requests, ‘overlap’ in subject matter, requests covering multiple departments, and repeated follow-ups. Which sounds a bit like a weekly long unfocused request, including asks for information that’s already been provided (but didn’t say what they wanted) or refused, plus a load of other emails in relation to the previous half a dozen requests.

Sending lots of requests in a short period of time isn’t necessarily vexatious. Having some requests refused as vexatious for being confused or overlapping, and sending follow-ups, doesn’t mean all your requests are vexatious. But requests need to be potentially answerable (aim for focused and specific) and have an identifiable public interest (it goes without saying that they need to be politely and respectfully worded).

Looking at some of the other requests posted to the Facebook group (which rather support the above theory of why their requests are getting refused), terrible graphics aren’t the only thing AI has had a hand in (ChatGPT loves a bit of pointless boilerplate).

Some other Freedom of Information news

Taking a break from rowing with the Scottish Government, the Scottish Information Commissioner has issued the first ever FOI Practice Recommendation relating to poor record keeping at a Scottish public authority.

Perth and Kinross Council took a decision to abolish the director of economy, place and learning without creating a single record of it (it claimed only verbal discussions were had).

The Foilies reward the public bodies that are the best at being the worst at FOI in North America. This year’s winners include:

• DOGE for firing FOI officers so requests go unanswered
• government contractors accused of deleting databases of government data
• the disclosure log that’s only going to include things Richmond City Council think the public should see
• the Department of Homeland Security for it’s new (and useless) way of recording government business carried out on work phones – via screenshot rather than archiving messages
• and Vancouver City Council for introducing a fee for making FOI requests (having not learned from the government in British Columbia that while it may reduce numbers, requests just end up costing more to deal with).

This week’s Freedom of Information stories…

E-bikes & e-scooters on fire

E-bike and e-scooter fires reached a record high last year, new figures suggest.

There were 432 blazes involving e-bikes during 2025 – a 38% jump compared with a year earlier. Meanwhile, 147 e-scooter fires were reported, up 20% from the 123 seen in 2024.

The PA news agency sent Freedom of Information requests to all 49 fire brigades in the UK and asked for the number of incidents recorded between 2021 and 2025.

Emergency alerts

The Government considered using the emergency alerts system during 2024 summer riots, which targeted mosques and asylum hotels, a freedom of information request has revealed.

The alert system was launched in 2023 to warn the public of a danger to life in their area, with mobile phone users receiving a loud siren-like sound and a message on their devices if they are at risk.

A freedom of information (FOI) request submitted to the Cabinet Office by the Press Association has revealed a list of “near misses” – when alerts were considered but not actually sent out. Southport incident

In another case, an alert to issue a “boil notice” to 40,000 people in the Brixham area of Devon was considered after reports of contaminated drinking water were giving residents severe sickness and diarrhoea.

Police cars rammed

Data obtained by Belfast Live through a Freedom of Information request shows there were 504 incidents involving police vehicles in Northern Ireland during 2025 — the equivalent of at least one crash every day.

‌Among those were 54 cases in which police vehicles were deliberately rammed, amounting to roughly one such incident every week.

The total cost of damages to the taxpayer reached £706,116.04, with £162,056.81 attributed specifically to ramming incidents.

Floods on the line

Rail passengers in Wales are facing growing delays and cancellations as flooding increasingly hits the network, according to new analysis based on Network Rail data.

Figures obtained through the Freedom of Information Act suggest flood-related disruption affecting services in Wales has risen by around 256 per cent compared with the mid-2010s.

Between 2022 and 23 December 2025, services affecting passengers in Wales generated an average of around 2,366 passenger delay minutes a year due to flooding. That compares with an average of 664 a year between 2014 and 2017.

Flagged

No sponsorship agreements have been signed yet for the Union Flag banners which Lee Anderson claimed would not cost Nottinghamshire taxpayers ‘a single penny’.

‌The Reform-UK run county council spent £75,000 putting up 164 banners across Nottinghamshire and, although they will eventually be used to commemorate a range of events and advertise council services – like fostering – the banners have only been used so far to display the Union Flag.

The confirmation came in response to a Freedom of Information request submitted to Nottinghamshire County Council and, in its March 20 response, the authority said: “We have had a small number of enquiries from organisations expressing interest in sponsoring some of the banners.

Ferry cancellations

Scotland’s struggling CalMac ferry service is turning into an election campaign issue. It’s probably easier to demand improvements from the Scottish Government than appease God in the hope of better weather.

Being publicly-owned means the operating company is subject to FOI (the Welsh equivalent for both being covered by FOI and government-owned is the underutilised Cardiff Airport).

The Gourock to Dunoon ferry was cancelled for ‘technical reasons’ more often than any other CalMac service in the last five years, new figures have revealed.

A total of 6,670 cancellations blamed on breakdowns affected the service between 2020 and 2025, according to figures released by the Scottish Government under freedom of information – more than on all of CalMac’s other services put together.

Late buses

Veterinary students and other University of Bristol staff are voicing their concerns over the quality of U2 bus services, a vital route that runs directly to the Vet School’s Langford Campus.

According to a freedom of information (FoI) request lodged with the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority (WECA) by Epigram, the U2’s punctuality has fallen dramatically.

Between September 2024 and January 2025, U2 buses reached Langford campus on time 90.08 per cent of the time. A year later, across the same period, this had fallen to 60.31 per cent.

First Bus considers a bus to be ‘on time’ if it is between one minute before and five minutes and 59 seconds after the scheduled time of arrival.

Hospital thefts

More than 70 thefts were reported across hospitals in Essex in 2025, figures showed.

Items snatched from staff, patients and relatives included money and electronic devices, as well as medical equipment.

It happened at hospitals in Harlow, Basildon, Southend-on-Sea, Broomfield and Colchester, data supplied under the Freedom of Information Act revealed.

Church crime

The Countryside Alliance’s latest investigation has revealed that in 2025 nearly 4,000 crimes were committed on church property as well as other religious premises.

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were made to all of the UK’s 45 territorial police forces. At the time of writing, 44 police forces had responded to the requests, with 37 of them providing figures.

The figures show that there were 3,637 records of theft, burglary, criminal damage, vandalism and assault from January 1 to December 31 2025. An additional 172 crimes of different categories brings the total recorded crimes to 3,809.

Car sales

Devon’s police have predicted £300,000 of income from its vehicle recovery scheme in a year.

The estimate has been published in a response to a Freedom of Information request on the Devon & Cornwall Police website.

The force’s vehicle recovery scheme covers those seized for having no insurance, breakdowns, burnt out vehicles and those damaged in accidents, those linked to serious crime, stolen or abandoned.

The income comes from charges to owners and through sales of vehicles at auctions.

Car service

The identity of a car that was used by the mayor of Reading to get to and from engagements has been revealed, as well as the tens of thousands of pounds spent on it.

Thanks to an FOI, the Local Democracy Reporting Service can reveal that the latest mayoral car was a Tesla Model 3, which the council spent tens of thousands of pounds on.

The Tesla, an all-electric car, was hired through a local hire company from March 2021 until the agreement was discontinued in May 2023.

Since then, the mayors have used public transport or taxis to get to and from mayoral duties.

Paternity leave

Research from The Dad Shift, based on responses of local authorities to Freedom of Information Act requests, found only 16 out of 154 councils that responded offered more than two weeks.

None offers the six weeks at 90 per cent pay that The Dad Shift and other campaigners are calling for, with only 32 per cent of councils giving dads both weeks off at full pay. Some 58 per cent pay one week at full pay and one at statutory, and 10 per cent leave dads with only statutory pay across both weeks despite evidence this prevents working class fathers taking it up.

AI assistance

Inverclyde Council spent nearly £5,000 on its AI chatbot ‘Clyde’ since its launch last month.

The council website’s new AI tool has been used 298 times since the service went live on Friday, March 13.

The total cost was revealed in a freedom of information request (FOI) made by the Greenock Telegraph.

A council spokesperson said the £4,500 spent on bot ‘Clyde’, including one-off initial deployment costs, is being funded through a ‘specific digital modernisation budget’.

It is being trialled for an initial two-year trial period ‘to gauge its impact.’

Exotic pets

Crocodiles have been the most popular exotic animal for private ownership across the North East since 2016, council documents reveal.

The dwarf caiman has seen the most successful applications for private ownership since 2016 according to a region-wide freedom of information request.

One monkey and several species of wild cats have also been logged in private hands throughout the region.

Certain animals require a licence to own under The Dangerous Wild Animal Act 1976. Applications are made through local councils but you can get an unlimited fine and up to six months in prison if in possession of an exotic animal without a permit.

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The post Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 10/4/2026 – #FOIFriday first appeared on Words + Numbers.

Jump to this week’s FOI stories…

The UK Government has floated possible plans to cut the cost limit for dealing with FOI requests. Its complaint seems to be that requests have rocketed and budgets are under pressure.

Currently, staff time for dealing with FOI requests is charged at a flat rate of £25 an hour, and the limit per request is set at £600 for central government (or 24 hours) and £450 for other public bodies (or 18 hours).

The plans came in for quick criticism from groups like the Campaign for FOI and Transparency International UK, as well as from journalists who are regular user of the Act¹.

Bodies representing journalists and news organisations have now joined in calling on the Government to reconsider any moves to restrict FOI.

Dawn Alford, chief executive of the Society of Editors, said: “The Freedom of Information Act is a vital mechanism for ensuring accountability and transparency in government and any attempt to restrict the scope of the legislation would be damaging to democracy.”

In a letter to the Government, News Media Association chief executive Owen Meredith said reducing the cost threshold would expand the discretion of public authorities to refuse requests in a “highly concerning way”.

“It is not routine or trivial requests that would be excluded,” he said. “It is the most sensitive and significant ones – those involving complex decision-making, high-value contracts, safeguarding, multi-agency correspondence, and procurement.”

Even the people who usually side with cutting FOI costs are joining in…

Councillors in North Yorkshire have also raised concerns about local government transparency in response to potential changes to the FOI Act.

Cllr Michelle Donohue-Moncrieff, an Independent on North Yorkshire Council, said: “Materials obtained through Freedom of Information requests are very important for the public and those who represent them”, adding the proposed changes would make public bodies less accountable.

Labour councillor and former journalist, John Ritchie, said he fully appreciates that researching complicated and involved FOI requests can be costly and time consuming for local government employees, but said “this must be balanced against the damage this proposed reduction in costs would cause, foremost a lack of transparency and openness at a time when politicians of all hues need to rebuild public trust”.

Protest for FOI rights

We haven’t quite reached that point yet, but if we do we can possibly get some inspiration for protest signs from Canada.

Proposed changes to FOI laws in Ontario was one of the things being protested by crowds in the Canadian province at the weekend.

The proposals, which would stop the release of any messages involving ministers and staff, have been bundled into a bumper budget bill. Opposition parties are concerned the size of the bill will prevent debate about individual elements, and the legislation will be fast-tracked through.

Criticism of the plans also came from a former Ontario premier. Kathleen Wynne says being subject to the FOI Act often isn’t fun, but it’s part of the job and it’s important for democracy for people to be able to find out what their government is doing.

‘Please include any information covering the past 400 years…’

Not really a repeatable FOI story this one. Not sure there’s many nearly 400-year-old wills threatening local housing development plans.

Thanet District Council has given outline planning permission to a 1,600-home estate on Kent farmland in Birchington, near Margate. That was despite almost 2,000 objections.

However, a will, dating back to 1642, left the farmland to St John’s College, Cambridge, to fund scholarships and fellowships for young people born in Thanet and educated at The King’s School in Canterbury.

Local resident David Peerless says there is no evidence those scholarships have ever been awarded – or that the terms of the bequest were ever formally changed or brought to an end.

Mr Peerless obtained a copy of the will from the college using Freedom of Information laws, after being alerted to its existence by the Birchington Historical Trust.

He is now seeking a judicial review to ensure the historic conditions attached to the land are properly considered. He insists the move is not an attempt to block the development.

This week’s FOI stories…

Care home complaints

More than 290,000 reports of abuse were made in care homes across England between 2023 and 2025, according to new data obtained by Legal Expert.

The figures, secured through a Freedom of Information request to the Care Quality Commission, show a sharp rise in reports over the three-year period. In 2023, there were 90,232 reports, rising to 106,772 in 2025, an increase of 18%.

Hospital crime

A total of 10 reports of sexual offences have been made at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Bodelwyddan in the last year.

This has been revealed following a Freedom of Information request, made by the Journal to North Wales Police.

The force was asked to provide a breakdown of the number of reports of a sexual offence made at the hospital since March 20, 2025, including the date the report was made, the outcome of the report, and a brief summary of the alleged incident.

The summaries of incidents suggest the reports in the figures include incidents that happened at the hospital as well as those that happened elsewhere but were disclosed by the victim while they were at the hospital.

Bus crash

The number of London buses damaged in crashes and collisions is rising, new figures show.

There were 15,390 incidents leading to damage in 2025 and nearly 16,000 in 2024, according to Transport for London (TfL) who released the data following a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request.

In 2019, the earliest year for which comparable data is available, there were just 12,857 such incidents. The number of crashes during the Covid pandemic in 2020 (11,035) and 2021 (12,380) was even lower. There were 13,754 damage incidents in 2022 and 14,986 in 2023.

TfL said the data “includes all incidents where damage has been reported, including minor damage to the vehicle” such as paint scuffs, mirrors, and lights but “does not imply which road user’s behaviour or error may have led to the incident”.

Shoplifting by shop

A recent Freedom of Information response from Norfolk Constabulary has revealed the Norwich shops that have reported shoplifting crimes most frequently in the last year.

Castle Quarter, Chantry Place and Haymarket all reported fewer crimes in 2025 than in the previous year.

Mountain Warehouse in the Haymarket area still reported a large number of shoplifting offences, with 43 incidents in 2025 – a decrease of seven from 2024.

The number of reported offences in Primark dropped to nearly a third of those recorded last year, from 32 to 12.

In London Street, the Tesco Metro reported nearly triple the amount of shoplifting, with 33 reports in 2024 and 93 in 2025.

Speeding past schools

The father of a nine-year-old girl has been left ‘horrified’ at the number of drivers speeding outside a Swindon primary school, as over 4,000 have been caught.

Alistair Flockhart is a father and former governor of Holy Cross Primary School on Queens Drive in Swindon.

The 30mph road joins onto Swindon’s famous Magic Roundabout, which is used by thousands of drivers every day.

A Freedom of Information request put to Wiltshire Police shows that in 2025, police caught 4,261 drivers speeding outside the Swindon primary school. Some were caught going at more than twice the 30mph speed limit.

Water pollution

Stark new figures have revealed the scale of water pollution in Fermanagh, highlighting the repeated dumping of hazardous materials, asbestos, and fuel laundering waste into waterways across the region.

The figures, obtained through Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, also provide a detailed breakdown of around 200 incidents reported across Fermanagh and South Tyrone since 2020.

Towns such as Omagh and Enniskillen have emerged as consistent hotspots for illegal dumping, with incidents recorded across both urban centres and surrounding rural areas.

Studio finances

The West of England’s largest film and television studios has released information about its finances for the first time, Business Live can exclusively reveal. The Bristol City Council-owned Bottle Yard, in Hengrove, provided the details following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

‌Previous requests by journalists, local councillors and members of the public for any information on the Bottle Yard’s finances have repeatedly been rejected on the grounds the accounts are “commercially sensitive”. ‌Business Live logged an FOI on January 27 and Bristol City Council took 64 days to reply, despite regulations requiring public bodies to respond within 20 days.

In its response to the FOI, the council told Business Live that over the last financial year (2025-2026) the Bottle Yard’s budget was -£177,625. It is understood that Bristol City Council uses an accounting approach that targets zero to balance the books over the year, with money generated by the studios used to reach that target.

Business Live understands the Bottle Yard is an income-generating service and was targeting a surplus of £177,625 for the year. It is understood the studios achieved a surplus for 2025-2026, but it is not yet known whether that surplus is at the full target.

Concert prices

Events in Cardiff parks and at Cardiff Castle last summer generated over £600,000 of revenue, a freedom of information (FOI) request has revealed.

Concerts from the likes of Alanis Morissette, Noah Kahan, Stevie Wonder, and Will Smith took over Blackweir Fields and Cardiff Castle last year.

Cardiff Council is still refusing to to release the amount of money that it raised solely from Blackweir Live 2025, which took place in the fields.

Ferry cancellations

Crisis talks have been held ahead of the Easter holidays as Scotland’s beleaguered ferry fleet faces further disruption.

A spate of engine problems has left eight CalMac ferries out of action, with the operator warning of a “critical” shortage of vessels.

Data released under Freedom of Information shows cancellations for technical reasons rose from 709 in 2015 to 7,371 in 2025.

Figures from last year indicate that, for the first time in at least a decade, most cancellations were caused by technical faults rather than weather or other factors. In 2015, technical issues accounted for just one in 10 cancellations.

Hotel expenses

With FOI stories like this, how much of a story it actually is usually depends on how big the spending is in the context of an overall budget and how reasonable the spending seems.

With these hotel costs, the expenses might be reasonable. But £125 a night is a short-notice booking at the nice Doubletree by Hilton in Hull city centre, which might suggest a more efficient travel booking system could be helpful for that cost saving target.

The chief executive of the region’s crisis-hit hospitals trust has been claiming thousands of pounds in hotel expenses as the organisation has slumped to the bottom of the national performance rankings.

Lyn Simpson joined Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (HUTH) in July 2025 on a salary of £279,162 a year.

Now, despite the partnership having a cost savings target in excess of £100m this year, and staff having apply to senior management to buy basic items such as pens and pads of paper, The Hull Story can exclusively reveal Ms Simpson has been spending thousands on accommodation and travel.

Following a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, the trust has disclosed Ms Simpson has claimed £4,875 for 39 overnight stays – £125 per night. She has also claimed £629.65 in travel costs.

Travel expense

A Reading councillor has defended his record as Mayor over allegations of wasteful spending.

Councillor Glenn Dennis (Labour, Kentwood) was the Mayor of Reading for 2024/25. Among nearly 200 civic engagements attended included the 2024 European football championship in Düsseldorf, Germany, to watch Ukraine beat Slovakia 2-1.

Reading Borough Council spent £919.98 on flights for the visit, which was revealed in a freedom of information (FOI) request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

This cost seems to be from a follow-up FOI request to an earlier one that asked for a total for travel expenses and what trips had been made.

Armed police

It’s not clear what these figures actually are measuring.

The numbers are much higher than the number of firearms operations (492 in 2024/25) for Avon & Somerset as a whole. At the least, this one probably includes incidents where armed officers were stood down before being deployed.

On February 26, 2026, a Freedom of Information Request was submitted by the Gazette, asking for data on the number of times armed police assisted Avon and Somerset Police during 2025.

Data released by the information and disclosure manager from the Freedom of Information Services Directorate for the Avon and Somerset Police revealed that firearms officers supported Avon and Somerset Police with 2,777 in Somerset in 2025.

The data shows that, on average, there were 231 incidents a month attended by firearms officers in Somerset.

Website views

Another one where what’s requested, what’s provided, and what’s written about might not all be the same thing.

Pembrokeshire County Council staff scoured the internet for X-rated material hundreds of times on their official devices.

New figures show civil servants at the council – where employees are allowed to work from home two days a week – searched for adult content sites 122 times last November. The figure was 107 in December, 119 in January and jumped to a whopping 165 in February, a Freedom of Information request revealed.

And staff searched for platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime 52,782 times in November, 42,483 times in December, just over 40,000 times in January and 36,000 times in February.

With around 3,000 staff, that’s an average of about 15 visits per month per person.

But the FOI response said “A ‘hit’ in our filtering platform represents any URL request that matches a category rule. A single user action can generate many ‘hits’”.

Which suggests one search/visit may generate multiple ‘hits’ (those adult content visits look less ‘whopping’ in that context). I’d guess some of those streaming service ‘hits’ are being flagged from adverts on other sites.

Not viewing websites

The anger of civil servants has been revealed after the Scottish Government banned using work devices to purchase concert tickets and Amazon shopping.

An IT crackdown was revealed in December where staff were banned from using their work laptops and mobile phones to buy tickets to gigs or sports events. Online shopping and streaming videos was also banned.

There were six attempts to log onto X-rated sites such as Pornhub in November last year alone, the Scottish Government revealed.

But freedom of information requests seen by The Herald have revealed the extent of anger within the civil service, including warnings it was fuelled by the “right wing media” and widened the digital divide for workers who could not afford their own devices.

One civil servant described the policy as “wildly disproportionate”, arguing: “If I’ve followed the guidance correctly, it’s now considered misconduct to buy a cinema ticket or do a bit of online shopping on your work laptop while on your lunch break and it ‘may lead to disciplinary and/or criminal proceedings’”.

Pet thefts

Always worth checking Whatdotheyknow for any FOI requests for public bodies in your area.

West Midlands Police (WMP) has received reports of over 500 pet thefts incidents over the last five years, a Freedom of Information Request (FOI) has revealed.

‌The data, obtained through an FOI published on Whatdotheyknow, highlighted over the last five years there has been a total of 535 reported pet thefts incidents to WMP.

Of the list of reported property stolen, the police shared the statistics for: pet animal-bird, pet animal-dog, pet animal-other, cat, horse, rabbit and tortoise.

The highest number of reported pet theft incidents linked to dogs, with a staggering 384 reports lodged to the police over the last five years.

Phone thefts

Fewer than one per cent of mobile phone thefts result in a charge, damning police data has revealed.

A freedom of information request has shown that nearly nine in 10 cases were closed without a suspect being identified, with the Met Police closing 95 per cent of their investigations.

In the year 2024-25, 86,000 phone thefts were reported to the Met, which is the UK’s largest police force.

Of the 17 police forces that responded, the request revealed that just 0.3 per cent of thefts reported to the Met result in a charge.

ISA savings

The ‘how many £2 million ISAs?’ FOI is the new ‘how many £1 million ISAs?’ FOI.

The £2 million ISA is becoming the new £1 million ISA with 270 individuals holding more than £2 million in their ISA accounts last year, according to new data from Bowmore Wealth Group.

Data obtained from a Freedom of Information request to HMRC.

Disrupted flights

Hundreds of disruptive passengers have caused West Midlands Police to board planes at Birmingham Airport over the last decade.

‌A total of 255 passengers have been so disruptive that officers have been forced to intervene since the start of 2016.

‌They resulted in 201 passengers being removed from the flight, with 180 being arrested, often for alcohol-related incidents.

‌The figures have come to light thanks to Freedom of Information requests made to West Midlands Police, and cover the period from the start of 2016 to the end of August 2025.

Passport picture

According to figures MoneySavingExpert obtained from the Passport Office using a Freedom of Information request:

• Last year, over two-thirds (67.5%) of those applying online uploaded their photo themselves.
• But nearly a third (32.5%) – equivalent to over 2.1 million people – paid for a photo from a booth or shop.
• Of those who used their own photo, the vast majority were accepted first time round. However, nearly one in seven (13.5%) faced delays to their application due to issues with their photo.

Image by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels

1. Declaration of interest here, I’m both a journalist who’s a regular user of the Act and a board member for CFOI. ↩︎

The post Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 3/4/2026 – #FOIFriday first appeared on Words + Numbers.

Jump to this week’s FOI stories…

It did manage to score a victory in the seemingly never-ending saga¹ involving several FOIs into an investigation into Nicola Sturgeon’s conduct in relation to complaints about her her predecessor Alex Salmond.

The Scottish Information Commissioner had ruled the public interest in releasing the communications relating to appeal on whether the information was held outweighed the public interest in refusing it because of legal professional privilege.

That decision was complicated as the government hadn’t shared the withheld information (they don’t have to when its legal advice relating to the FOI Act), making it harder to fully know if the exemption was correct.

However, the court found the bar for the public interest test for information with legal professional privilege has to be very high. In this case, it was more of interest to the public than in the public interest (as this request is kind of removed from the original issue).

The court also felt the Commissioner had been unhappy the withheld information wasn’t shared with him, and that was a factor, in their view an illegitimate factor, influencing his decision.

This all seems to reflect the increasingly fractious relationship between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Information Commissioner.

The Commissioner has said he can “no longer trust” the Scottish Government to handle information relating to the Salmond files unsupervised. The Scottish Government has said freedom of information requests are “handled with the highest standards of impartiality and integrity”.

A lack of trust

This whole back and forth may be contributing to a wider distrust of the Scottish Government and its handling of FOI.

Sam Taylor, from pro-union think tank These Islands, is questioning the Scottish government’s political neutrality after it emerged a pro-independence podcaster was offered help with an FOI data request, and he wasn’t.

Correspondence released under freedom of information shows government officials writing to William Thomson, the man behind Scotonomics, in response to his FOI request for details on Scottish Government bonds.

As the request was likely to breech cost limits, the letter says: “As a first step, we can offer a meeting with the officials leading this programme of work to discuss and clarify your request”.

Mr Taylor asked for a sit down with officials to help refine his FOI request on government bonds. He was instructed to contact the cabinet secretary for finance, Shona Robison, and ask for a meeting with her.

The Scottish Government has said the situations weren’t the same. It said the first involved offering help to refine and overly broad FOI request. The second was a general request for a meeting to discuss information already released under FOI.

Just a bit of advice…

Putting aside whether this is evidence of Scottish Government bias, the offer of help was a generous one.

Public bodies are required to provide reasonable advice and assistance to people who have made, or are planning to make, a request for information.

If you’re not sure if you’re asking a question to the right public body, or you’re struggling to work out how to ask for the information you want, it’s a handy part of the Act to make use of.

Generally the advice and assistance involves explaining what information is likely to be held or not. And, in a case like this, why a request might be likely to breach cost limits and any possible ways to reduce its size and complexity.

Usually this is a email reply, maybe the offer of a phone call with an FOI officer. Offering to set up a meeting with several officials from a department is a bit more unusual. Not least because it’s more time consuming given the number of FOIs most places get.

And Scotland has some very enthusiastic users of the FOI Act. Not least the various opposition parties.

With Scottish Parliament elections coming up in May, everybody is likely looking for as much information as possible to use to argue the SNP Government is doing a bad job. And as you can see from this week’s FOI stories, with so many requests, doubling up ideas is likely.

Enthusiastic use of the FOI Act is apparently a bad thing

A BBC drama has come in for some (possibly opportunistic) criticism for appearing to link making FOI requests to extremist behaviour.

The third season of The Capture includes a character, James Whitlock, portrayed as a potentially violent extremist making FOI requests to the Home Office as part of his obsession with illegal immigration.

In one scene, lead character Rachel Carey, the police officer leading the investigation is told by a colleague: ‘Ma’am, it looks like Whitlock got hold of those Home Office documents via Freedom of Information request. He made a total of nine requests during his time in prison.’

She responds: ‘Nine Freedom of Information requests?’

She is then told: ‘He accused the government of covering up the true stats on undocumented migrants.’

Another colleague then comments: ‘It’s fair to say it’s something of an obsession for the lad.’

Apparently making nine FOI requests is a shocking obsessive campaign against the government. In the real world, I’m not even sure you’d manage to get a vexatious refusal for that. It also misses the reality that the kind of requests the drama suggests were being made would probably just get you a Section 21 refusal as the Home Office already publish those stats.

However, the outrage has seen Reform’s Zia Yusuf come out in defence of the Freedom of Information Act (possibly anything in pursuit of giving the BBC a kicking). Which might be a timely show of support.

Meanwhile in FOI restriction attempts

FOI is popular. And not just in a lots of requests way.

A poll commissioned by Ontario’s largest public sector union shows widespread disapproval of the government’s plan to exempt the records of the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants, and their offices from (FOI) laws.

Abacus Data surveyed 1,000 Ontarians between March 20 and 23, and found 60% of those asked oppose the FOI changes, while 24% support them. Another 16% are unsure.

There is strong disapproval of making the FOI changes retroactive, with 73% saying the move shouldn’t be allowed. People were also sceptical about the government’s motives, with 64% believing the new restrictions are more about reducing accountability than modernizing the system.

This week’s FOI stories…

Violence in schools

Violent incidents recorded in Scotland’s schools have more than doubled since the last Holyrood election, figures obtained by Scottish Labour have shown.

Since 2021-22, the number of violent incidents recorded in secondary schools soared by 182% from 2,413 to 6,809.

Violence in primary schools has surged by 113% in the same time, from 12,075 to 25,770.

The figures were obtained by Scottish Labour through a series of freedom of information requests to councils.

Assaults on teachers

According to data released through a Freedom of Information request, 2,998 incidents involved violence by pupils directed at head teachers, teachers, and support staff between March 1, 2025, and February 28, 2026.

The same period saw 1,158 assaults between pupils, 98 cases of verbal assault, and 733 instances of physical aggression by pupils toward teachers.

Assaults compensation

Half a million pounds has been paid out to teachers in Glasgow in compensation for physical assaults since 2019.

The Glasgow Times obtained the details of the claims and payouts under Freedom of Information from Glasgow City Council.

It shows that since 2019/20, there were 80 claims for compensation, including 17 from teachers and 52 from support for learning workers.

All were the result of assaults from pupils.

Court backlogs

The number of cases waiting to be dealt with by crown courts in England and Wales has hit a record high of more than 80,000 cases.

There were 80,203 outstanding cases at the end of last year, up 8% on the 74,106 recorded in the previous 12 months, according to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures.

Figures obtained by the Press Association under freedom of information laws show 2,600 crown court trials in England and Wales are not listed until at least 2028, with 29 not due to be heard until 2030.

Cases in the backlog include more than 200 rape trials, according to the MoJ court listings records as of January 29.

Unreasonable

Councils have paid out more than £20m in in legal costs and expert fees during appeals to overtun their ‘unreasonable’ planning refusals.

Sky News’s four-month investigation using Freedom of Information (FOI) laws asked councils in England about the number and cost of unreasonable decisions. Those are ones that have been overturned on appeal by the Government’s Planning Inspectorate as ‘unreasonable’.

Of those that replied, Cornwall Council had the most at 40, followed by North Yorkshire Council with 38 and Bromley Council with 27. However, more than 100 local councils did not respond to the FOI requests, while hundreds more only released partial data.

AI use

Back in July last year, the UK government signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI, the tech firm behind ChatGPT, with much fanfare about harnessing artificial intelligence to “address society’s greatest challenges”.

A freedom of information (FoI) request asked the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) for information about trials conducted under the memorandum, which said the company would work with civil servants to “identify opportunities for how advanced AI models can be deployed throughout government and the private sector”.

The department replied that it held none of this information and had “not undertaken any trials under the memorandum of understanding with OpenAI”.

Trapped cars

Vehicles have got stuck in a guided busway’s car traps 127 times since the start of 2020, official figures show.

Cambridgeshire’s guided busway takes modified buses along a dedicated track – with no access for cars – and serves Cambridge, St Ives and Huntingdon.

Last month a police officer responding to an emergency was given a temporary driving ban after falling foul of the trap at Station Road in St Ives which, with 73 cases, has the highest number of vehicles reported to have got trapped.

Confiscated

Hunreds of illicit items have been seized at Ayrshire’s courthouses in the last three years, despite the region’s two sheriff courts going for large periods without any security cover.

Figures released following a Freedom of Information request by Ayrshire Weekly Press reveal that almost 400 items deemed “inappropriate to take into a courtroom” have been confiscated at Ayr and Kilmarnock Sheriff Courts between 2023 and 2025.

This total includes 59 knives, a further 45 bladed or pointed articles, and 38 syringes or needles.

Landlord fines

While landlords face rising penalties under the Renters’ Rights Act, councils across London are collecting only a fraction of the fines they have issued.

Research from the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) show boroughs imposed almost £8.7m in civil penalties between 2023/24 and 2024/25 but recovered less than £3m. In total, more than 1,300 penalties were issued across the capital in that period.

The analysis is based on Freedom of Information requests sent to councils responsible for enforcement in the private rented sector.

Car club parking

High charges from some London councils may have contributed to the exit of car club operator Zipcar from the UK at the start of the year, according to a network of over 140 environmental NGOs.

Independent research commissioned by Clean Cities found that car club parking tariffs far exceeded the price for parking a private car, with maximum costs averaging more than £900 per year per shared car.

Kensington & Chelsea had the highest maximum tariff for a car club parking permit, and could be charging up to £2,382 for a single car club permit. Merton charged £80, while other councils didn’t charge for bay permits for car clubs.

The research was compiled using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests issued to all London borough councils and the City of London Corporation.

Investigations

Maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), which runs the Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital, are currently subject to the largest independent review in NHS history.

The Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates nurses and midwives, said it has 85 open cases relating to maternity staff in Nottingham, 15 of which are at an investigation stage.

The GMC, meanwhile, refused to reveal how many doctors were subject to ongoing cases when asked by Nottinghamshire Live.

Just six doctors across Nottingham’s hospitals have been referred to the GMC between 2013 and August 2025, a Freedom of Information request made by Nottinghamshire Live shows.

Bird poisoning

Nature lovers across Wales were horrified in September when a White Tailed Sea Eagle disappeared near Newtown, Powys, with fears it had been illegally killed. The rare bird’s radio transmitter had been cut off and hidden on some moorland.

New information collected by the wildlife group Wildlife Poisoning Research UK (WPRUK) has found there have been a number of wildlife poisonings in the area where the transmitter was found. Data on cases of deliberate poisoning of birds has been obtained using Freedom of Information requests.

Since 2012 at least 18 birds have been killed in this area by suspected poisoning, including 11 ravens, 4 red kites, 2 buzzards and 1 crow. With so many birds killed in this area and the indiscriminate nature of these toxins, the group is questioning whether the eagle was poisoned as well.

Bird shooting

Each year a group of men from the Isle of Lewis travels to the remote uninhabited island of Sula Sgeir. They go there to kill young gannet seabirds, known as “guga”, as part of a traditional hunt.

The activity is carried out under licence from NatureScot. Last year, it allowed the killing of 500 birds and said this number is unlikely to affect the long-term stability of the gannet population.

Wildlife advocacy group Protect the Wild used a freedom of information request to obtain documents about the island’s gannet population. In a scientific assessment used to inform the 2025 licence, NatureScot’s adviser warns that Sula Sgeir is the only Special Protection Area (SPA) for gannets in Scotland whose population has shrunk.

Between 2001, when the island first became an SPA, and 2024, the number of apparently occupied nesting sites at Sula Sgeir fell by almost 2%. Meanwhile, all other colonies showed increases between 9% and 314%.

Bird feeding

Some 143 councils in England and Wales have hit people with more than 44,000 penalty notices under so-called Public Space Protection Orders in the past three years.

Data revealed under freedom of information laws showed town halls doling out fines for “wild bird feeding”, “obscene gestures” and “not presenting bins correctly”.

Slow moving traffic

The House of Lords is to remove a controversial team of ‘traffic marshals’ regularly patrolling Parliament’s internal roads to prevent politicians from being run over by cars doing just 5mph, after spending more than £5m on them.

The safety officials have been placed at key points within the Westminster estate on safety grounds since 2019 while renovation works have been carried out.

Figures revealed under a freedom of information request suggest the cost of having them cover alleged trouble spots on the eight-acre site has passed £5million in total.

Image by Erik Karits on Pexels

1. Quick(ish) background:
   Investigation finds Ms Sturgeon did not breach the code. A redacted report is released
   Original FOI:
   Request for all the information gathered in the investigation is made. Scottish Government says it doesn’t hold that.
   Court eventually rules the Scottish Government does hold that.
   Scottish Government has to reconsider original request. It says some of the information asked for is available already and refuses to release the rest. Scottish Information Commissioner says some of information was correctly withheld but some parts should be released.
   The Scottish Government accepts it has to release some of the information, appeals other parts of the decision
   Scottish Government misses deadlines to release some of the information requested in the original FOI request. Scottish Information Commissioner threatens legal action.
   Redacted files relating to the first FOI request are released. Some have to be taken down for further redactions.
   Follow-up FOI 1
   FOI request is made for all communications related to the court appeal about the information being held.
   Some redacted information is released and the rest is refused. Scottish Information Commissioner says it should be released.
   Scottish Government goes to court to argue it some of it shouldn’t as its subject to legal professional privilege.
   Follow-up FOI 2
   FOI request is made for the legal advice related to the court appeal about the information being held.
   The Scottish Government refuses the request. Scottish Information Commissioner says it should be released and it actually is.
   The Scottish Information Commissioner says the government didn’t actually release all the legal advice and he’s considering legal action. ↩︎

The post Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 27/3/2026 – #FOIFriday first appeared on Words + Numbers.

Jump to this week’s FOI stories…

It seems like when one Government bid to make getting information about what they’re up to fails, two more pop up.

The UK Government is apparently considering cutting the cost limit for dealing with requests. Its complaint seems to be that requests have rocketed and budgets are under pressure.

This’ll be the Labour Party that was happy to use FOI to get information for its campaigns in the run-up to the last election.

From July to September 2025, central government received 24,216 FOI requests, the largest number of FOI requests received in a quarter since records began. Just over half (54%) were fully or partially refused. Of those fully refused, 43% were refused on cost grounds.

Currently, staff time for dealing with FOI requests is charged at a flat rate of £25 an hour, and the limit is per request is set at £600 for central government (or 24 hours) and £450 for other public bodies (or 18 hours).

According to the FT, the Cabinet Office does not publish estimates of the annual cost of the FOI system, but it is thought to run into tens of millions of pounds.

The budget available for central government’s ‘day-to-day’ spending was £517.9 billion for 2025/26. Tens of millions on FOI is probably not the actual issue.

FOI being a time-consuming burden that takes up resources that could be used elsewhere is a regular whinge from public bodies.

Bedford Council is the latest. Apparently FOIs (and subject access requests) are increasing and getting more complex. The council is blaming people using AI tools like ChatGPT.

We have already looked at all of these issues (so looking forward to doing it again). The House of Commons Justice Committee’s Post-legislative scrutiny of the FOI Act back in 2012 and broadly concluded the benefits outweigh the burdens. It wasn’t very convinced on suggestions for changing the cost limits.

Alex Parsons at MySociety points out cutting the time limits is unlikely to reduce costs. The number of requests is unlikely to reduce and while more can be refused, they’ll be more likely to attract complaints about the precision of the time estimate.

How to actually cut costs

Reducing complaints is a real cost saver (so any changes to the FOI Act that’s likely to increase those is unlikely to be helpful).

Research back in 2010 found internal reviews carried out by Government departments cost around five times more than the original request.

The number of internal review requests to central government has stayed pretty consistent in recent years (around 3,000 a year), even as numbers of refused requests has grown. But they’re slightly less likely to be upheld in full (73% in 2024, trending down from 81% in 2019).

Complaints to the ICO are also up. A third of fully or partially upheld internal reviews led to further complaints in 2024, with a big jump since 2022.

Not spending a load of money on lawyers to fight complaints would also be a good idea. A new investigation by Democracy for Sale has found that government departments spent over £1 million on legal fees to fight Freedom of Information requests in 2024 and 2025.

Employing experienced FOI officers that senior staff will listen to helps. Research by the Constitution Unit found estimates of time taken to reply to FOIs ranging from two hours to 50. The first involved an experienced person who could quickly make decisions, the other a junior staff member who had to spend time going through multiple layers of management.

Just releasing the information people keep asking for also works. Moray Council reckons it can save 40 hours of officer time a year with a new system for publishing the details of elected members’ expenses online rather than answering FOIs.

If arguing it costs too much fails…

If any Chinese spies have any tips on getting FOI requests answered in full in a timely manner they want to share, that’d be great.

The second argument the Government appears to be making for why it needs to make changes to the FOI Act is its worried China is exploiting FOI laws to gather UK security data.

The government thinks its spotted a pattern of requests relating to the UK’s defence and national security, raising suspicions that Beijing may be behind a significant proportion of them. Individual requests could be pieced together to reveal sensitive information, a concept known as the “mosaic effect” in intelligence circles.

Broadly this argument requires everyone involved to be an idiot (possible, see the US Government).

The UK Government would need to be really bad at spotting requests that might reveal sensitive information (individually or in conjunction with other releases). It then has to be incapable of using the exemptions already in the FOI Act to not release that information (because they’re right there already, as Tim Turner points out).

It needs Chinese intelligence agencies to decide an efficient way to get information is by using a system that is notoriously slow and likely to lead to not getting the information you asked for. And the ICO is not big on overturning refusals based on defence, security and international affairs.

As George Greenwood points out, there’s probably more effective ways to gain access and influence.

And in Canada

The government is planning to change FOI laws in Ontario to stop the release of any messages involving ministers and staff. The move, which would also cover any in-progress requests, could also keep the premier’s cellphone records permanently secret.

It’ll probably come as absolutely no surprise that there’s an ongoing FOI battle to get access to Premier Doug Ford’s cellphone records, after suggestions he was using his personal phone to conduct government business.

Ford has offered various reasons for the changes, saying they’re necessary to preserve the cabinet’s confidential discussions, and to protect constituents’ “personal” or “health” information.

He’s also thrown in a potential threat from China for good measure (it’s a very fashionable claim, the Australian Government was also having vague unverifiable problems with it too).

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has pointed out the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) already prevents the release of personal information, subject to limited exceptions, and specifically doesn’t allow the disclosure of health information. It also has exemptions relating to national security.

Be careful what you wish for

Over the other side of Canada, the government in British Columbia is also trying to make changes to its FOI laws.

What’s interesting there is that having introduced a $10 fee to make requests in November 2021, it might have cut numbers, but it hasn’t t actually reduced the FOI work.

Requests to the BC government have fallen 44% over the past five years. They were down from 8,347 in 2020/21 (the last full year before fees were introduced) to 4,691 in 2024/25.

In 2024/25, 85% of requests were answered within the deadline, barely a change from 86% in 2020/21. Requests have got more involved – the average number of pages processed per FOI request was 366 in 2024/25, more than double the 159 in 2020/21.

BC’s information and privacy commissioner Michael Harvey says his office is seeing a sharp increase in FOI and privacy complaints and reviews as the remaining request have become more broad and complex.

He said: “They will seek ‘any and all’ records, no matter how many records they are, they won’t narrow their requests, and many of them, a small number, but some of them are becoming very combative with public bodies, even with our own offices.”

“This has led public bodies to feel like they’re under siege.”

This week’s FOI stories…

Street crime

One of Birmingham’s busiest nightlife spots was marred by rape, kidnap, robbery and assaults in a single month, exclusive new data can reveal.‌

Broad Street, dubbed the city’s ‘Golden Mile’, is known for its party atmosphere, bars and clubs, but fresh police stats reveal a darker side to the strip.

‌Freedom of Information data requested by BirminghamLive detailed over 100 crimes reported to West Midlands Police from the well-known street.

‌Some of the most serious offences include rape of a male, rape of a female, threats to kill, sexual assault on a female aged 13 or over, kidnapping and robbery.

Deaths of homeless people

Eight homeless people in Glasgow died just weeks into 2026, new figures have revealed.

The stats, obtained through a Freedom of Information Request, show that eight people died in homeless accommodation within the first seven weeks of the year. Of these, five died in temporary accommodation, and the following three passed away in hotels.

Police injuries

New figures released to Belfast Live by the PSNI under a Freedom of Information request shows the number of injured at work years between January 1 2021 and Dec 31 2025.

The number of PSNI officers who were injured in the line of duty in the last five years stands at 3,778 with 2,039 sustaining injuries as the result of an assault.

More than 2,000 sustained injuries including bites, fractures, bruises, headaches, cuts and abrasions.

Police stress

West Midlands Police (WMP) officer absences due to stress have hiked over 45 per cent in four years, a Freedom of Information Request has revealed.

Between 2022 and 2025, the number of days off due to stress in the police force has increased from 15,918 days in 2022 to a total of 23,150 days in 2025.

This is a leap of 45.4 per cent, with figures leading up to March 11 of this year highlighting within just under three and a half months a total of 4,257 days have been taken off by WMP officers due to stress.

Flag removal

Cumberland Council spent almost £10,000 taking down ‘unauthorised flags’ in 2025.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that Cumberland Council spent £9,262.25 removing unauthorised flags in the financial year 2025/26 whilst there were no costs in the previous two financial years.

The council said it supported residents’ right to fly flags on their property but unauthorised flags, posters, banners etc. attached to lampposts, roundabouts and barriers were removed “to avoid causing distractions to road users and damaging infrastructure”.

Online sales

Online selling websites such as Ebay, Vinted and Airbnb reported 4million users’ earnings to HM Revenue & Customs last year, under new rules which are being referred to as a potential ‘goldmine’ for the taxman.

The taxman received reports on the income of four million online sellers in 2025, a Freedom of Information request by tax and accounting firm BDO reveals.

This is a 272 per cent rise on the 1.5million seller reports it received in 2024.

Long A&E waits

More than 12,500 people waited in excess of 24 hours at A&E departments last year, the Scottish Liberal Democrats have claimed.

‌The FOI also found 41,828 people waited longer than 24 hours at A&Es between 2015 and 2025.

Busy speed cameras

More than 237,000 people were reported for speeding on the roads of Devon and Cornwall in 2025, which marks a steep rise.

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the BBC revealed the number of Notices of Intended Prosecution issued by the police trebled between 2020 and 2025.

The most prolific speed camera in the force area is on the A383 Ashburton Road in Newton Abbot, Devon – it caught 10,134 motorists last year.

Empty homes

More than 15,000 homes have sat empty in Ipswich in the last five years a freedom of information (FOI) request has revealed.

The request revealed that thousands of homes across each Ipswich ward have been empty since 2020.

This follows news that Ipswich Borough Council brought 14 long-term empty homes back into use during 2025.

Lost property

Transport for London (TfL) said a total of 166,309 items were found on its buses in the year to December 2025, according to data released following a Freedom of Information request submitted by LondonNow.

Travelcards topped the list, with 28,073 left behind across the network. General miscellaneous items made up the second most common category of items, totalling 20,387.

Wallets, purses and cash were close behind with 20,082 items found. Telephones were another frequently left item, with 15,570 discovered on board.

Tool thefts

New figures have revealed how many tool thefts have been reported in Sussex since 2021.

Freedom of Information data obtained by 2580 Group shows that 632 tool thefts were reported to Sussex Police between January 2021 and December 2025.

Cancelled

Of the 17 events cancelled by councils due to costs, 10 were in Tower Hamlets, with two each in the boroughs of Greenwich, Havering and Lewisham. Hounslow’s Rhythm and Sound 2025 music festival was also cancelled.

The figures were released following a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request by BBC London to the capital’s 32 councils.

Events cancelled included the Blackheath Fireworks Display in Lewisham, Sparkle in the Park in Greenwich and the Havering Show in Hornchurch. Havering Council also cancelled a Christmas lights switch on.

Lynx on the loose

When your big cats FOI request might actually involve real big cats, but you’re still not getting any information.

Earlier this year the Strathy asked for copies of Police Scotland investigation papers in connection with the release of four lynx into the wild by Kingussie in January last year.

However, no information has been forthcoming beyond the fact that the matter was “subject to a live police enquiry”, with a refusal on the grounds that disclosure might prejudice the investigation.

Image by Murat Halıcı on Pexels

The post Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 20/3/2026 – #FOIFriday first appeared on Words + Numbers.