Good news, the Harry Kane statue has finally found a home. After five years in storage, it was unveiled by the player himself in Waltham Forest this week.
FOI plays a part in this saga – the first pics of the £7,200 statue were released after an FOI request, allowing everyone to make judgements on how accurately it portrays it’s subject. A follow up request found that TfL had said no to placing the statue on Chingford station as they feared it would distract drivers.
In more serious FOI news, this is a very annoying refusal argument – drag your feet through refusals, decision notices and appeals then claim the information is too old to be released.
The Romford Recorder has been fighting for the release of a dossier of racism and sexism complaints from Havering Council. It managed to win at a First Tier Tribunal but the council has been trying unsuccessfully to appeal the decision.
The council also issued a press release in which chief executive Andrew Blake-Herbert said the document should remain suppressed because it was “historic” and held “no relevance or resemblance” to the council today.
But the Recorder pointed out that the only reason it was “historic” was because the council had refused to publish it contemporaneously, directly causing the three-year legal battle for its release.
Also sending lots of FOI requests is not, in and of itself, vexatious.
A tribunal has dismissed Bexley Council’s justification for refusing to answer FOI requests from a resident after he sent more than 100 in 18 months. The authority refused 10 requests, claiming they were ‘vexatious’ and placed a burden on the council.
A First Tier Tribunal reportedly found the resident to be fair, measured and have the public interest at heart when making the 10 requests. It added that it was important that information relating to road safety was made available to the public.
Assaults on teachers
At least three members of staff are being physically assaulted or verbally abused every day due to an “epidemic of violence” in Renfrewshire classrooms, trade unions chiefs have revealed.
Official figures show 588 sickening incidents were reported by teachers and other school workers in Renfrewshire in the 2023/24 academic year.
GMB Scotland, representing school support staff including pupil support assistants, janitors, admin and catering workers, obtained the data under Freedom of Information legislation and said the reported incidents confirm the scale of the crisis but remain only “the tip of the iceberg”.
Underpaid workers
More than 1,200 garment workers in Leicester were illegally underpaid over the last five years, figures obtained by the BBC have revealed.
The significant wage exploitation has been found in figures released by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), covering the past five financial years from 2019-20 to 2023-24.
A total of £177,678 in National Minimum Wage arrears for workers were identified, with penalties of £338,504 issued to textile companies in the same time period.
The BBC’s freedom of information (FOI) request also revealed that none of the employers responsible for the underpayments had received criminal convictions.
Home schooling
The children’s commissioner for England believes some families are being “forced” to educate their children at home after a BBC investigation found the number making the switch has doubled in five years.
UK councils received more than 66,000 notifications of children being moved to home education in 2023-2024 – up from 28,000 in 2019-2020, figures from freedom of information (FOI) requests show.
Riot compensation
Almost £2m has been claimed under the Riot Compensation Act (RCA), external in response to widespread disorder across the UK last summer, the BBC has discovered.
According to figures from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), shared exclusively with the BBC, the APCC is aware of 88 claims under the RCA, worth about £1.9m, but it does not wish to publicly identify which areas they have come from.
The BBC sent Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, which have revealed requests to claims authorities in Cleveland, Staffordshire, Humberside, Durham, Greater Manchester, Derbyshire and Merseyside.
Rogue landlords
Data collected from councils across Derbyshire revealed that just 13 rogue landlords faced a court prosecution in the past five years – with Chesterfield Borough Council responsible for the majority and several councils failing to secure any.
Public Interest Lawyers sent a Freedom of Information request to every council in England and Wales to find out how many prosecutions had been pursued. 252 councils responded within the time frame for a request, and 115 (46%) confirmed that there were no prosecutions at all from April 2019 to March 2024.
Airbnb
Nearly 90% of all planning applications to convert properties into Airbnb-style accommodation in Edinburgh have been rejected since new rules were announced in 2022, according to a freedom of information (FOI) request.
The data, obtained by the Gilson Gray law firm and seen by the PA news agency, showed that of the 632 planning applications for short-term lets made to the council in the last two years, 566 were refused.
Landlords must apply for licences to run short-term lets following national legislation passed by MSPs in 2022. Those who fail to comply with the regulations face a fine of £2500.
Cycle in the park
The Royal Parks, which runs eight London parklands, has released a dossier of collision data showing how the elderly, the partially sighted and children have been knocked down and injured by cyclists.
The file, released using freedom of information laws, logs “speeding” and “aggressive” cyclists being involved in hit and runs, ignoring zebra crossings, travelling on illegal bikes and hitting pedestrians so hard they are “catapulted” into the air.
Richmond Park and Regent’s Park, which cycling clubs use to record lap speeds, were reported as having the highest number of incidents.
E-scooters
No parents were prosecuted during a police campaign aiming to discourage the buying of e-scooters for children at Christmas, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed.
Last year Thames Valley Police (TVP) Chief Constable Jason Hogg said the force would prosecute parents.
The number of e-scooters seized during the crackdown was also lower on average than the following summer.
Potholes (again)
As we reach pothole season – with the rain, ice, snow, and wind, a reminder that they’re always a good topic for FOI requests.
Gloucestershire County Council refused 98% of its 829 claims for pothole compensation between 2022 and 2023.
The council topped the list for compensation refusal rates among 18 councils out of 21 that responded to a Freedom of Information request by the RAC.
Tax tip-off cash
The tax agency HMRC has nearly doubled the amount paid out to those making tip-offs, the highest figure of at least the past seven years.
According to Freedom of Information data obtained by accountancy firm Price Bailey, HMRC has paid out nearly £1m for tip-offs over 2023/24, 92 per cent higher than the £508,500 paid over 2022/23.
HMRC has been actively trying to reduce its £39.8bn tax gap.
The tax agency received 151,763 anonymous tip-offs via its fraud hotline channels in 2023/24, but this was less than the 157,270 reports it received in 2022/23.
Dodgy drivers
A man still holds a valid driving licence despite having 229 penalty points, figures show. The 26-year-old from Flintshire in north Wales is among more than 50 drivers in Britain who can legally drive with at least 30 penalty points.
The statistics from August 2024, given to the BBC by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, showed 10,000 valid licence holders with 12 points or more, the typical threshold for a ban.
Blocked loos
Civil servants have cost the British taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds clogging up their own loos.
Government buildings have suffered more than 7,000 blocked toilets and urinals in the last two years, data from the Cabinet Office and other departments have shown.
Toilets used by new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, Bridget Phillipson and Michael Gove have all gone out of order, with the Department for Work and Pensions being the biggest culprits.
The cost of plumbing jobs to fix civil servants’ toilets and urinals has hit at least £100, 396 since 2023, with the Cabinet Office alone spending £73,800 pounds to fix government loos across the country.
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