Freedom of Information rows!
Does inspiring an on-stage outburst from Liam Gallagher mean FOI is cool?
Ahead of the Edinburgh leg of the Oasis tour, council documents released under FOI noted “medium to high intoxication” should be expected at the concert, and that there was some “concern about crowds of Oasis on weekends as they are already rowdy, and the tone of the band”.
Liam Gallagher described Edinburgh Council as “a bunch of snakes” on the first night of shows at Murrayfield Stadium, and said the band was “still waiting for our apology”.
Edinburgh Council has refused to apologise (it says the comments didn’t come from council officers. It’s not clear whether they were from other organisations involved in safety planning or were reports of comments made to them).
Meanwhile, a judge has thrown out Bristol Council’s challenge to an enforcement order demanding that it clears its FOI backlog.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued a practice notice to Bristol Council in August 2023 as it kept getting complaints (61 in total) about overdue FOI responses. At that point, just 56% of request were answered within 20 working days, and 147 request were overdue, including 12 that were more than 100 days overdue.
The council was told to get a plan in place to get to 90% of requests answered on time by the end of December 2023, incorporating any recovery plan to clear the overdue responses.
After a January 2024 update from the council (timeliness up to 81%, 165 requests in the backlog), the ICO asked to look at the plan.
It was not impressed with the plan. In March 2024, it issued an enforcement notice. At this point the oldest request was from January 2023 and 34 were over a year old. The council said it would take 39 months to clear the backlog.
Bristol Council appealed the enforcement notice, complaining the practice notice had focused on improving the percentage of requests answered in time rather than specifically mentioning the backlog. It described the ICO’s decision to issue an enforcement notice, rather than having an informal chat, as “disproportionate and excessively punitive”.
The council said with resources finite, due to the pressures of austerity measures. Based on the practice notice it had devoted them to improving the timeliness percentage. If the backlog been mentioned, additional resources for that would have been made available.
In the First Tier Tribunal decision, the judge said, that while the backlog wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the backlog, it wasn’t explicitly excluded, it was discussed before the enforcement notice was issued, and it would have needed to be tackled as part of getting to 90% of requests answered in time.
Judge Gilda Kiai said: “Significant delays can cause real difficulties to applicants, who often need information within a particular period of time for important reasons. It cannot be correct or fair for requests to not be dealt with for three years without any sanctions.”
Obviously the next FOI is ‘how much did this all cost?’ (hopefully you get an answer in 20 working days).
Data breaches
More than 250 data breaches have occurred within Cumbria Police over the past three years, according to new figures, with the force paying nearly £17,000 in compensation to successful claimants.
The incidents include emails and letters being sent to the wrong people.
A total of 113 data breaches were recorded in the past year alone – up from 99 the year before with 40 in 2022/23 – according to figures obtained by Data Breach Claims UK through a Freedom of Information request.
Parking outside schools
Nearly 28,000 penalty charge notices (PCNs) have been issued to drivers for breaking rules on parking outside schools in Derby, it has been revealed.
Derby City Council has set up School Safe Haven Zones in 14 area across the city which drivers cannot enter during term time.
Figures obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), through a Freedom of Information request have shown the council generated £950,000 from the penalties between July 2023 and May 2025.
Unroadworthy vehicles
The number of people receiving penalty points on their licences for driving unroadworthy vehicles has jumped by 52% over the course of just 12 months, new data analysed by the RAC’s mobile servicing and repairs division has found.*
Following a Freedom of Information request to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), the RAC found that a total of 13,109 penalty point endorsements were given to drivers in 2024 for driving vehicles with defective brakes, tyres, steering or other problems. This is a substantial increase of 4,495 endorsements compared to the 2023 number which was 8,614. The offence attracts three penalty points which stay on drivers’ licences for four years.
In the bin
Thousands of public sector devices were discarded last year with nearly 80 per cent ending up in landfill or incineration, sparking the calls for action on digital poverty and e-waste.
Data obtained via a freedom of information request uncovered that of 22,000 phones and laptops no longer in use across public bodies, more than 17,600 were simply thrown away with only 3,144 being donated for reuse.
No thanks
Free portraits of the king were offered to all public bodies – every town hall, university, hospital and even jobcentre – so the new monarch’s visage could gaze down on his subjects.
More than £2.7m was spent meeting requests for the pictures and while take-up was patchy, more than 20,000 images of Charles in a medal-laden Royal Navy uniform were sent out – a 31% hit rate.
But overall more than 46,500 public institutions that could have ordered a portrait did not. Take-up rates included only 3% of hospitals, 7% of universities and only one in four Church of England churches. National and local government bodies were far more enthusiastic with 73% making requests, while every one of the 23 coastguard bodies received a portrait.
But the current government is proving coy about where exactly any of the images of King Charles ended up. It initially rejected the request for the information by arguing disclosure would be an “actionable breach of confidence”.
When the Guardian appealed on the grounds that “requesting a portrait of the king funded by the taxpayer for the express purpose of being publicly displayed cannot reasonably be considered a confidential matter”. Apparently, organisations would be distracted from operational activity by having to answer questions about why they didn’t want a portrait.
Cold pools
In the current weather this might be something of a blessing.
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by the BBC found one in seven councils (15%) had reduced pool temperatures since 2020, with rising energy costs taking most of the blame.
Of the 256 councils who responded to BBC FOIs, 39 had lowered pool temperatures in the past five years. In total, 33 local authorities had permanently lowered the temperature of at least one main or learner pool.
No council lowered the target temperature of their pools by more that one degree, or below recommendations that pools should be 27C to 29C for recreational swimming and adult teaching, and 29C to 31C for children’s teaching.
Image by Kindel Media on Pexels
