It seems a bit of a weird coincidence if records people have been requesting under Freedom of Information were all destroyed after a public body had been ordered to comply with a request.
So the outcome of the Information Commissioner’s Office’s (ICO) investigation into Fermanagh and Omagh District Council’s handling of key dog breeding records should be interesting.
An FOI request was made in January 2024 for dog breeding licences and inspection reports dating back to 2015. The council refused, and the requester complained to the ICO, which agreed with them and order the release of the information.
The council appealed to a First Tier Tribunal, but the appeal was dismissed. The decision was signed off on June 16 (with a decision given date of June 18).
The ICO’s information notice suggests the requested information was disclosed after the tribunal decision (some reports seem to suggest otherwise). But the requester asked for more information about the council’s records management policy as with more recent requests they’d been told it was council’s policy to destroy inspection reports after a period of two years.
The ‘Record of Destruction’ they received shows, on the same day the tribunal decision was signed, the council destroyed a large volume of documents covering the period from 2015 to 2023. These included dog breeding and block licences, inspection reports and associated records, service requests, and files from the Council’s shared “R Drive: Dog Breeding” directory.
The Commissioner was “both surprised and concerned at the timing”. The information notice required the council to provide FOI/EIR requests and responses since June 15, more details about the information destroyed, and details of communications about the decision to destroy the records.
Elsewhere, after last week’s cautionary tale about the perils of parish councils and FOI, it’s probably not a great sign when issues between councillors reach the sending off FOI requests stage.
A parish councillor has complained to the ICO about Culcheth and Glazebury Parish Council failing to respond to his request. He was asking about the decision to hire security for a parish council meeting in October, as well as the cost.
As before, there seems to be a lot going on (concerns about unadvertised meetings, parish councillors excluded from proceedings, public comments restricted at meetings). One issue seems to be, despite repeated requests from residents, the Parish Council has declined to publish or declare the cost of this year’s Christmas lights.
Return to care
Parents threatened and blamed by authorities as 1,000 adopted children returned to care
The BBC conducted the most extensive Freedom of Information request ever into adoptions that have broken down, finding that more than 1,000 adopted children in the UK have returned to care in the past five years.
That is much higher than the figure in a recent government report – but the true number is likely to be even larger, as only a third of authorities said they collected this data as standard practice.
Gangland violence
Police Scotland have spent more than £530,000 during their Operation Portaledge investigation into gangland violence.
Figures obtained by the Daily Record, up to the end of September, show that £528,010 was spent on police and staff overtime and a further £5,517 on expenses and transport costs with a total spend of £533,528.
Operation Portaledge was launched in March in response to a series of firebombings and other attacks on people and property in the Edinburgh and Glasgow areas linked to a long running feud between the Lyons and Daniel crime clans.
To date 62 people have been arrested with more arrests believed to be in the pipeline.
AI costs
I think this might be a more common FOI request of the future, probably with
The amount of money Coventry City Council has spent on artificial intelligence programmes has more than quadrupled in one year. The figures, which emerged in the past week, show £136,000 has been spent so far on AI for the financial year 2025/26.
This increased dramatically, with the spend for the previous year 2024/25 being just £30,000. The previous year, 2023/24, £38,000 was spent.
The data comes as part of a Freedom of Information request which was put to the council last month. The request asked for the total amount spent by the council on artificial intelligence (AI) systems, software, consultancy, training, or related services in each of the last five financial years for which data is available – data for the three most recent financial years was provided.
Street sleeping
Following the tragic death of a homeless man who had been sleeping in a bin, new data has revealed that similar incidents remain a serious and recurring risk across Yorkshire.
Freedom of Information data has revealed that, between January 2020 and the year to September 2025, Yorkshire Ambulance Service were called to 10 incidents where an individual was found inside a refuse container or refuse collection vehicle.
Of those, fewer than five resulted in injury, while no deaths were recorded during that period.
Bridge strikes
A railway bridge dubbed the “most bashed’ in Britain has been hit 80 times in the last five years.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent by CambridgeshireLive to Network Rail revealed how many times the railway bridge in Stuntney Road, Ely has been hit across five years.
Of these 80 times, a bridge strike led to an “operational impact” for rail services on 53 occasions. The most bridge strikes took place in 2020, when it was hit 19 times.
Seized e-bikes
Hundreds of modified e-bikes and e-scooters have been seized in Norfolk since the launch of a crackdown, it can be revealed.
It comes after it was announced that “addressing safety concerns, unsafe riding, anti-social behaviour and the legality of modifications with e-bikes and e-scooters” would be new priorities for police.
Now, a Freedom of Information request has revealed the extent of the clampdown’s success in the first eight months of the year.
As of August 2025, a total of 112 e-bikes were seized under Section 165 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. A further 12 bikes were taken by officers for unrelated reasons. A total of 140 e-scooters were also seized, while 12 were taken off owners for other reasons.
To not break the law, an e-bike motor’s maximum continuous rated power output must not exceed 250 watts, and electrical assistance cannot help propel the bike when it is travelling over 15.5mph.
Christmas crime
A less festive Festive FOI.
In 2024, Devon and Cornwall Police recorded eight, four and eight burglaries on each of the respective festive holidays, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request shows.
The force also recorded 11 burglaries on New Year’s Day in 2024, the FOI request shows.
Busy tram stop
Greater Manchester’s most used tram stop has been revealed, with close to 4.5m passengers using the city centre platform. St Peter’s Square retains its crown as top stop from 2021/22, the last time a ranking was released by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM).
The three least-used tram stops are all in Wythenshawe, according to footfall data from Freedom of Information request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Only 23,850 people visited least-used Robinswood Road last year, the station after Wythenshawe Town Centre when heading to Manchester Airport.
Image by Rijan Hamidovic on Pexels
