You know how the Scottish Information Commissioner told public bodies not to take Freedom of Information Act court action they are likely to lose?
The Scottish Government has decided to head back to court over an FOI request related to the one that led to that warning in the first place.
Background:
- 2019 – Nicola Sturgeon referred herself to independent adviser James Hamilton following concerns that she failed to record meetings and phone calls she had with her predecessor Alex Salmond and his former chief of staff after he was the subject of complaints from two civil servants.
- March 2021 – Mr Hamilton investigated and issued a report in which he determined Ms Sturgeon did not breach the code. It’s mostly redacted, so an FOI is made for the full report.
- December 2023 – The Scottish Government claims it doesn’t hold the full report. The Scottish Information Commissioner decided it did and a court agreed (very very quickly, leading people to think the Scottish Government might not have had the strongest case).
- October 2024 – There’s an FOI request (obviously) for the legal advice to the Scottish Government that led them to go to court. The Scottish Information Commissioner has to issue a decision notice to get it released (this is the point at which he warns public bodies to carefully consider the merits of spending lots of money wasting time).
- Turns out the legal advice was they’d probably lose.
The next FOI was for the communications relating to the court case. Scottish Government refused, Scottish Information Commissioner issued a decision notice. And the Scottish Government is planning to go to court rather than publish (can’t really comment on chances of success but it does mean this whole saga goes on longer and costs more).
School fines
The schools who hand out the most fines to parents in Brighton and Hove have been revealed.
New data shows that Hove Park School has issued the highest number of fines in a five year period, from 2019 to 2025 so far: 860 in total.
A Freedom of Information Request obtained by The Argus reveals that across the city local secondary schools issued a total of 3,150 fines since 2019.
Of these, 963 fines were issued to parents in a single academic year, 2023 to 2024 – the highest since 2019.
Meanwhile, Confused.com has used FOI to create a school fines calculator (so you can offset them against the savings on your holiday).
Informants
Cumbria Police paid over £250,000 to informants between 2020 and 2025, according to new figures.
Data acquired via a request made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by the News & Star shows that Cumbria Police paid informants or ‘Covert Human Intelligence Sources’ £288,299.67 between 2020 and 2025.
Police station repairs
A Lanarkshire MSP has slammed the Scottish Government’s “sustained neglect” of policing in Lanarkshire.
Graham Simpson’s comments come after the Scottish Conservatives uncovered that over 300 police stations across Scotland currently require repairs.
The Freedom of Information response received by the party shows that in Lanarkshire 26 stations are in need of repair or have been declared unfit for purpose.
Church crime
Two churches in Nottinghamshire have said they will continue to serve the community after a new survey highlighted crime in and around places of worship.
The county saw 344 crimes recorded on church property from the start of 2022 until the end of 2024. Of these, 190 were thefts, 105 criminal damage and 49 were violent incidents.
The survey was carried out by the Countryside Alliance, which submitted a Freedom of Information request to all 45 UK police forces. The number of recorded crimes put Nottinghamshire among the 10 worst affected areas, the group said.
Museum pieces
Remains of more than 1,500 people – including a possible king and the first recorded case of triplets anywhere in the world – are held by Hertfordshire museums, a Freedom of Information request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service has revealed.
David Thorold, a curator at St Albans Museums, said the more than 500 items of human remains they hold includes the Folly Lane burial of somebody from the early Roman period who “was probably one of the local kings of the Catuvellauni tribe, conceivably the king known as Adminius, who was on friendly terms with the Romans”.
The largest collection of human remains held by a Hertfordshire council is in North Herts, where the museum estimates they have more than 1,000 items, including those known as ‘the woman and three babies’, who featured in a 2011 documentary on the BBC.
Graffiti on the line
Reports of increased graffiti on Tube trains, in particular on the Central and Bakerloo lines, have prompted Londoners to complain to the transport authority.
One passenger told Transport for London (TfL) that the Bakerloo line’s carriages had become “very dirty” and “covered” in graffiti.
In a Freedom of Information request, passengers asked what was being done to clean them.
A TfL spokesperson has said they work to remove graffiti as quickly as they can, with “offensive graffiti removed as a matter of urgency”.
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