I know I bang on about not sending FOI requests when you don’t have to (here’s some datasets you could go grab instead), but sometimes you might need the FOI request to add detail.
Doing your research before you send your request can save you and public bodies time (the ICO has advice on how to do searches before you send your request). Not only might you find the information you’re looking for but you may also find better ways to phrase what you’re asking for.
But sometimes an FOI is the only route.
Suspensions for drugs and alcohol
NEARLY 130 children a day are being sent home from school after being caught with booze, drugs or cigarettes. Alarmingly, the figures for England obtained by The Sun include at least one pupil as young as five.
Figures for the year ending July 2023, the latest available, show there 24,073 suspensions for drugs and alcohol rule breaches — up 6% on 2022. They included one pupil in Year 1 — where kids are aged five or six. There was another in Year 2 and six in Year 3.
A lot of this information is available publicly (so depending on what you need you might be able to save yourself an FOI), but here it’s the information about the reason for suspension plus school year that needed an FOI.
Council Tax
Another one where you can find some of the information without an FOI (the amount of money outstanding), but need an FOI for the details like how much is owed in each ward.
Nearly £10m was owed by Cardiff residents in council tax charges to the city council last year, according to data from the local authority. Data obtained by Accident Claims Advice via a freedom of information request to Cardiff Council shows that £9.7m was recorded as owed in council tax for 2023 – more than all of the years from 2019.
It also shows that between 2019 and 2023, £19m in total was recorded as being owed in council tax across those years. Grangetown was the ward owing the most in council tax in 2023 when the data was recorded (£859,731) and was followed by Adamsdown (£754,600). Tongwynlais was recorded as owing the least that year (£44,682).
Sextortion
There are no official statistics around the number of sextortion cases in the UK. So BBC News sent a Freedom of Information Act request to every police force in the UK, asking how many reported blackmail offences featured the word “sextortion” over the last decade.
The 33 forces (out of a total 45) who responded recorded almost 8,000 blackmail cases logged with a reference to sextortion last year. The same number of forces recorded 23 in 2014. All the forces to respond were in England and Wales.
Across the last decade, there were at least 21,323 recorded offences that included a reference to the word sextortion. Over 18,000 of these were since the pandemic.
Bike hire
Got a local bike or e-scooter hire scheme the council is involved in running? Might be worth an FOI to see how it’s going.
The Belfast Bike Scheme has seen rentals reduce by half in the last two years, while vandalism costs have continued to increase.
Responding to a Freedom of Information request from The Irish News, Belfast City Council said that more than 112,000 journeys/rentals were made in 2023/24, a drop of 50% since the post-lockdown boom of nearly 224,000 in 2021/22.
The most recent figures available also showed that vandalism cost over £14,500 in 2021/22, up from previous totals of over £6,000 in 2021/21, nearly £11,000 in 2019/20 and over £7,500 in 2018/19. Higher costs were incurred in 2017/18 with nearly £22,000, and £19,600 the previous year.
Bearskins
The bearskin caps worn by soldiers outside Buckingham Palace now cost more than £2,000 each, figures from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) show.
The cost of the ceremonial caps, made from the fur of black bears, soared by 30% in a year, according to figures revealed in response to a Freedom of Information request from animal welfare campaigners.
Karens
Check the disclosure logs for your local public bodies, as you might turn up interesting requests by other people.
The name Karen has been singled out in a Freedom of Information request made for suspects causing problems on the streets of West Yorkshire.
According to West Yorkshire Police, there were 27 Karens placed in custody for causing a range of offences from August 2023 to July 2024. They have been categorised under public fear, alarm and distress and causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress.
Figures for public disorder calls, common assault, abusive or insulting behaviour in public have been published by West Yorkshire Police. The public information has been published on the force’s website.
Image by Marina Shatskikh on Pexels
