I was at the BBC Shared Data Unit’s conference earlier this week talking about Freedom of Information. And the thing that kept coming up was late requests (so late they end up just not being useful).
So my main advice is: complain more. The Information Commissioner’s Office is pretty good on this particular bit of FOI bad practice and will usually get the ball rolling on getting a request answered within a week or so of a complaint.
So if you’ve got a request a week or so past due, gather up all the related correspondence, and put it, as well as information about the date the request was made, in an email to the ICO (or use their online form).
Usually you’ll pretty quickly get back an email saying the ICO has sent the public body complained about an email reminding them to reply and giving them 10 working days.
If you still don’t get a response, ask the ICO for a decision notice (which again should be issued pretty quickly). That’ll give the public body a further 35 calendar days to respond.
But some FOI responses that did come back…
Attack on public sector staff
LBC conducted an extensive analysis of NHS data, home office statistics and freedom of information requests. Combined, they laid bare the scale of violent attacks against those who keep Britain safe from danger, tend to the sick and educate our children.
Overall, LBC’s figures suggest that at least 625 public sector workers were assaulted per day in 2024, working at around one every two minutes.
Analysis of NHS England’s staff survey, for example, indicated that over 217,000 incidents of physical abuse against staff members took place in 2024 alone, representing an increase of over 15,000 cases on the previous year.
Long mental health waits
Patients are suffering the “torture” of waiting up to three days in A&E in “utterly degrading” conditions for a mental health bed, nurses have warned.
The number of mental health patients being kept in A&E departments for at least 12 hours has risen five-fold since before the pandemic, according to new figures obtained under freedom of information laws by the Royal College of Nursing.
Nearly 5,300 mental health patients waited at least 12 hours after a decision had been made to admit them at A&E departments in England last year – up from around 1,000 in 2019.
Jail emergencies
Record numbers of 999 calls are being made from Scotland’s biggest jail following a spate of drug overdoses and assaults.
Shock new figures show that 62 ambulances were sent to Barlinnie in Glasgow between January and March this year to take seriously ill inmates to hospital. That compares to 41 call outs in the previous three months – October to December – an increase of 51 percent.
The figures for 2025 are also more than triple the 17 emergency calls in the first three months of 2023 and higher than the 27 made in the same period in 2022.
Their release, under Freedom of Information, follows mounting criticism of the conditions at 143 year old Barlinnie and delays over its £1billion replacement.
Compensation
Bosses at a cash-strapped council have paid out more than half a million pounds to staff injured in workplace accidents.
A Freedom of Information request has revealed that Glasgow City Council has been forced to fork out an eye-watering £629,291 over the last three years to workers injured in slips, trips, falls and manual handling of defective equipment while at work.
The highest pay out to staff was £447,487 in the financial year 2022/23, while £181,804 was paid during 2023/24.
Escalator falls
The total number of falls down escalators on the London Underground is nearing pre-pandemic levels, according to TfL.
The total number of falls decreased by three-quarters between 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, but reached a total of 1,847 in 2024-25, only 4% off its pre-pandemic standings.
This comes as TfL have upped their first aid training spending by 20% from £100k to £120k in the past two years, a Freedom of Information request found.
The station with the most escalator falls was King’s Cross with 586 recorded between 2019 and 2025, followed by Waterloo (577), London Bridge (555), and Euston (502).
Temporary fines
A north-west London council raised more than £300,000 in 17 days from drivers who ignored or were unaware of restrictions during roadworks.
Wembley High Road in Brent was damaged by “leaky drainage systems” and pressure from vehicles using it, and was partly closed in January until the repair work was finished earlier this month.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted to Brent Council revealed that 5,701 penalty charge notices (PCNs) were issued between 15 and 31 January due to violations of the restrictions.
The council said it was “surprised” by the number of drivers who failed to take notice of the no-entry signage and used a lane that was only open to buses and emergency vehicles.
Electric vehicles
New “electric” street sweepers will actually run on diesel, Sutton Council has admitted. Last month, the local authority posted to X revealing a new fleet of road sweepers would soon be taking to the borough’s streets.
However, after a Freedom of Information (FoI) request about the new road sweepers, the council has now admitted seven Hako Citymaster mechanical sweepers are not electric after all, but instead run on diesel. The council said the mixed fleet includes electric vehicles such as the Citroen Berlingo van and the electric trike that were pictured.
Not electric vehicles
While 60% of regular buses in north-east England meet the higher Euro VI engine standards, the rest have been described as offsetting some of the benefits of pollution reduction efforts.
Regional mayor Kim McGuinness, whose responsibilities include local transport, said she wanted every bus in the region to be zero emission within 10 years.
In response to a freedom of information request, the North East Combined Authority (NECA) said its latest statistics on the issue were dated to February 2024 and it could only provide data for the area’s three major bus firms. Additionally, 15% of buses in the region were operated by smaller companies for which it did not have figures.
Litter fines
A Freedom of Information request has revealed the council has fined litterbugs more than £500,000 since 2023. Information obtained by the Gazette shows there have been 3,338 instances when council wardens have issued fines for littering, although only one of those offences related to dog fouling.
Between 2023 and 2024, £356,400 was collected and between 2024 to the present day, a total of £217,500 has been collected. The current fine for littering is £150 and dog fouling is £100.
Invasive species
Less than 1% of the Government’s biosecurity budget goes on invasive species, despite the danger they pose to British wildlife, figures suggest.
Conservationists warned the funding to tackle non-native plants and animals was failing to match the risk they posed to “cherished” native species from water voles to ladybirds, as well as to waterways, homes, businesses and local green spaces.
A freedom of information request to the Animal and Plant Health Agency by Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL) shows only £2.47 million of the estimated £250 million biosecurity budget was going to tackling invasive species.
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