We love FOIs (unsurprisingly). And we love potholes (well, not so much after having to spend my Saturday patching a bike tyre, but they’re an FOI classic).
Now, happily, they’re inspiring more FOI requests. The Freedom of Information Act got a shout out on The One Show (about 8mins in) as a tool for checking what your council knew about the pothole that damaged your car/threw you off your bike.
There’s also a template letter, for those needing a bit of help getting started with the FOI process.
Stalking
Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs) were introduced five years ago but a Freedom of Information request by the BBC found 1,439 SPOs were issued by the 40 forces who responded to the request.
Between 2020 and 2023 nearly 440,000 cases of stalking were recorded across the UK’s 44 police forces.
Online fraud
Online shopping fraud cost consumers more than £56 million last year, marking a rise of 20%.
Consumers reported 68,000 cases of online shopping fraud in the 2023-24 financial year, with losses totalling more than £56.3 million, according to data from Action Fraud obtained by the Lib Dems through a Freedom of Information request.
This is compared to £46.6 million of losses in the previous year to fraudulent online shopping scams and some 66,000 cases reported.
Council tax
A cash-strapped council is pursuing unpaid council tax from 1998 and the number of residents who received bailiffs visits over unpaid bills has gone up by more than 200%, data has shown.
Slough Borough Council said in November it needed to find more than £28m in savings in order to balance its budget.
The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, showed that 1,923 residents received bailiffs visits over outstanding council tax bills in 2019.
That figure fell in 2021 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, but in 2022 it was 6,268 – a 225% increase on three years previously.
It fell slightly in 2023 but was still more than double the 2019 figure.
Long delays
A patient fit enough to be discharged, but with “highly complex” needs has been stuck in a Scottish hospital for more than seven years.
The Scottish Tories submitted Freedom of Information requests to health boards across Scotland to shed light on the scale of the delayed discharge crisis.
NHS Fife confirmed one patient has been waiting for 2,576 days – or seven years and 21 days – despite being deemed well enough to leave hospital.
XL Bullies
Almost half of the dogs euthanised by Nottingham City Council in 2024 were XL Bullies, new data has revealed. The figures, obtained through a Freedom of Information request to the authority, show that 307 dogs entered the council’s kennels in 2024.
Of those, 90 animals were euthanised, 40 of them being XL bullies. Seventeen of them were American Bulldogs, 13 cross breeds, 10 Staffordshire bull terriers, four French bulldogs, four of unknown breed and two mastiffs.
Playground incidents
A Freedom of Information request revealed Sheffield Council had opened three playgrounds in the last year, including Ellesmere Park playground, Mather Road Recreation Ground and Pound’s Park.
It also revealed there had been five injuries reported to the council at its playgrounds between March and November 2024. They were:
- Dislocated knee suffered on a trampoline
- Fractured thigh bone/femur suffered on climbing equipment
- Light bruising suffered on a ‘me to you’ swing
- Bruised eye suffered on a climbing frame
- Fractured ankle caused by a slip in wet weather
Commemorative coins
The Royal Mint declined to produce a set of coins celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s grandchildren because it believed some of them didn’t have ‘an entirely positive public profile’.
The snub to the royal grandchildren, who include Princes William and Harry, is in documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday via freedom of information laws.
The documents show that the Royal Mint’s Advisory Committee on the Design of Coins, Medals, Seals and Decorations rejected the series of coins at a meeting on March 5, 2012.
Ghosts
London Underground probably isn’t haunted.
But it does have people in good spirits, some vodka, and a few issues with phantom Oyster charges.
A trawl of the disclosure log (definitely not encouraging sending this type of request) found someone asked TfL to publish “any reports of paranormal activity at Tube, DLR, London Overground, Elizabeth Line and Tram locations made to TfL since January 1, 2022”.
The Evening Standard reports: “The search returned 156 results, but only one of them related to paranormal activity.
“This related to a distressed 15-year-old boy at King’s Cross on the Metropolitan line in December 2023, who also mentioned that he had seen ghosts.
“The remainder of results were records talking about being in ‘good spirits’ (typically a customer or train driver after an incident) or spirit as in alcohol (customers who were intoxicated/carrying a bottle of spirit).”
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