A journalist is facing a £14k Freedom of Information costs bill.
Jump to this week’s FOI stories…
He had submitted multiple FOI requests that formed the basis of more than 23 published stories scrutinising the work of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), an independent body responsible for selecting candidates for judicial office in England and Wales.
The case follows earlier tribunal proceedings in which the JAC was ordered to disclose recruitment material, after the tribunal found that a transparent judicial appointments process was in the public interest.
Now the JAC is claiming Choudhury “acted unreasonably” by threatening to pursue contempt of court proceedings when it failed to comply with a tribunal order to disclose information under the FOI act.
He withdrew his Contempt of Court action against the JAC in September 2025 once he had enough information to continue reporting, “even though the JAC had not fully complied with the decision notice”, he said.
A hearing about the costs claim will take place before the FTT on 29 April.
Chilling effect
Choudhury strongly rejects the costs application, describing it as unlawful and retaliatory.
Laura Davison, NUJ general secretary, said attempts to recover costs in this way were “highly unusual” and warned of wider consequences if the application succeeds. “If the JAC’s application is upheld, it would create a significant new risk for journalists using FOI requests to hold power to account and add to the weaponry of those who use SLAPPs [Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation] to silence media scrutiny,” she said.
Dawn Alford, Chief Executive of the Society of Editors, said: “Pursuing a journalist for significant costs in these circumstances sends a stark message: challenge authority, and you may pay the price. That creates a chilling effect on investigative reporting, particularly for freelancers and smaller publishers without the backing of large organisations.”
‘Highly unusual’ is right
This isn’t a usual FOI case – very few people take complaints about requests to a tribunal. It’s not a significant risk to most journalists using FOI requests.
For context, I send a lot more FOI requests than the average journalist, and make many more complaints to the ICO. But I’ve only had two cases go to the FTT.
There’s no cost involved in making a complaint to the ICO. If it issues a Decision Notice and a public body doesn’t comply, it’s the ICO’s job to enforce the Decision Notice. It’s the one that can go to court to have the public body held in contempt (it doesn’t, but it can).
So for the vast majority of journalists using FOI to hold power to account, the threat of a costs order in this case creates absolutely no additional risk.
Any chilling effect is probably more likely to be felt by people considering pursuing contempt of court proceedings for any failure to comply with a court order.
Costs and Tribunals
Tim Turner, at FOI Daily, points out that tribunals are courts and come with the risk of cost awards. However, this shouldn’t put people off taking an FOI complaint to the tribunal if they think the case is strong enough.
Any risk should be very low. The vast majority of FTT hearings (including those in the General Regulatory Chamber where FOI cases are heard) are on a ‘no cost shifting’ basis. So everyone is responsible for their own costs. The winner can’t claim their costs from the loser.
In terms of FOI hearings, the FTT can only really make a cost order if a party has acted unreasonably in bringing, defending or conducting the proceedings. This is why the JAC is claiming Choudhury “acted unreasonably”.
Unreasonable here is likely to be a high bar. The test used in previous cases has been: “would a reasonable person acting reasonably have acted in this way? Is there a reasonable explanation for the conduct in issue?”.
Litigants in person will generally get slightly more leeway. Courts expect to deal with only the “clearest cases” to avoid time-wasting.
If you appeal an FOI case to the Upper Tier Tribunal, the same rules around cost orders as in the FTT will apply.
Hopefully, the JAC’s case is swiftly dismissed. On the facts so far shared (JAC didn’t disclose information FTT said it should by date it should, Choudhury starts contempt of court action to get it to do so, he withdraws action when some of the information is disclosed), there appears no unreasonable actions here.
Freedom of Information restricted
The changes will stop the release of any messages involving ministers and staff. It’s also retroactive, affecting ongoing requests for documents from the Ford government and hitting three ongoing court decisions as well as multiple appeals.
The changes were very much pushed through. The FOI changes had been added into Ontario’s 2026 budget bill. The bill had passed a second reading at the start of April and been referred to committee (usually where bills are examined in detail and can be amended).
But on Tuesday, the Government voted to skip the committee stage and go straight to a third reading. The third reading was then scheduled for Wednesday evening.
The vote on the bill then passed after being deferred to Thursday lunchtime, the day before the legislature heads off for a week-long break.
Once the bill receives royal assent, it will become law. No date has so far been set for that.
Not only does this bill make it harder to hold the government to account (it’s basically designed to do that), there’s the issue of getting it reversed.
It’s not a popular move (though how much it resonates with the wider public is unknown). Promising to overturn it may form a useful part of campaigning if the government is seen as corrupt or hiding things. But the temptation to leave it as is may prove too tempting for others once they’re in government.
FOI-based scrutiny for thee, not for me
Politicians don’t like to be held to account. Hating Freedom of Information is a convenient outlet for that.
A few weeks back the Government decided to do some anonymous briefing about too many FOI requests, possibly all from Chinese spies using AI to access state secrets. Since then it’s not exactly denied that it might like to restrict FOI, possibly by cutting the time limit.
Ben Worthy, an academic who researches FOI, argues in The House magazine that part of the reason for another round of trying to crack down on FOI is politicians just don’t like the transparency the Act is trying to bring.
But also that they buy into a version of FOI where it’s an annoying burden. He suggests senior politicians likely only see complicated, controversial requests or the ones directly about them. They’ve also bought into a view that governing would be easier without it getting in the way.
I think this almost gets to why politicians are fine with the existence of the FOI Act when they’re in opposition. And then a lot less keen on FOI when they’re in government.
FOI can be a great tool for holding Governments to account. Brilliant for opposition politicians, with the added bonus that doing this can increase their chances of winning over voters.
But being on the receiving end of a freedom of information request about your work sucks. Nobody’s likely to enjoy a document dive trying to find out where you messed up.
But, as former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne had argued in relation to Doug Ford’s attempt to restrict FOI there, it comes with the job. It’s important – the public should be able to find out what’s going on, either through their own requests or via those made by opposition parties, journalists, and so on.
Hopefully weakening Freedom of Information is hard
Previous attempts to change the FOI Act to make it harder to get information have not had much success.
As The House article points out having a review of how the Act is working runs the risk it just comes back saying everything is mostly fine (statutory time limit for internal reviews when?).
Trying to undermine the Act by being difficult (slowing down responses to requests) or evasive (using personal WhatsApp accounts and deleting messages) would probably be easier if you didn’t have an Information Commissioner that’s actually issuing enforcement notices after years of inaction. Or a Scottish Information Commissioner who seems to like picking fights with the Scottish Government.
Making smaller changes like cutting the time limit or charging for requests might be possible to do but they’re not likely to be popular (or actually successful in reducing the impact of FOI). Trying to “create a sense that FOI is a ‘problem’, rather than a democratic right” could work or risks the opposite effect.
FOI is almost certainly more popular than the current Labour Government. And it’s popular with opposition politicians (for now at least) and journalists who are already making lots of noise opposing any potential changes. While the Government has the option to make changes using secondary legislation without much parliamentary scrutiny, it’s whether it thinks it can weather any blowback.
Lots of FOI requests? Have you tried publishing things?
Speaking to councillors at a scrutiny panel, Middlesbrough Council director of adult social care Louise Grabham described how the council is “absolutely inundated” by FOI requests “which take up so much time to respond to”, so the council is looking how more data can be readily published.
When there are themes and trends being requested, she argued that such data should be published openly, so people can be directed to such information, rather than the council needing to repeatedly send out the same statistics.
In terms of sharing information in a way that would help avoid requests, Middlesbrough’s open data and FOI pages aren’t bad (especially compared to some public bodies). But if it has an FOI disclosure log, it’s not obvious where it is. Plus someone could do with going through and making sure things are updated (it’s a little hit and miss).
Still not learning…
You may have thought by now, with many high profile cases, people would have learned to check Freedom of Information responses before sending.
Personal information belonging to residents living in temporary homelessness accommodation was mistakenly attached to a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act response sent out by Barking and Dagenham Council, according to a recent report by Private Eye magazine.
The council seem to have been somewhat lucky in that the recipient quickly alerted it to the additional information sent. So personal information wasn’t also uploaded to a disclosure log or to WhatDoTheyKnow.
The list of names was unintentionally included when responding to a query about payments made by the council to private sector landlords for temporary accommodation.
The breach happened “because a spreadsheet was attached in error which still contained hidden source data that had not been properly deleted”. It stated the spreadsheet featured “around 6,500 lines” though not all entries included names and some were duplicates, adding that it was “not a full or definitive list of names”.
So most likely, someone created a pivot table to get the answer to the request and just copied it to a new sheet…as a pivot table. Double clicking on a pivot table will reveal the underlying data in it.
Paste values only solves this one really easily. Checking your file isn’t suspiciously big for a spreadsheet that’s only supposed to have a small table in it is another good idea. The ICO has a whole guidance page on avoiding this problem.
This week’s Freedom of Information stories…
Information breaches
Recorded data breach incidents at England’s largest local authorities have risen by more than 50% over the past five years, according to analysis of Freedom of Information data by password management company Passpack.
An examination of FOI responses from 78 councils shows that internally logged data incidents increased by 53% between 2021 and 2025, while the number of breaches reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) rose by 41% over the same period.
In the most recent reporting year, the councils collectively recorded 16,902 incidents, alongside 305 referrals to the ICO.
The increase may be down to better understanding of data security and more reporting of minor incidents and near-misses, as some councils claimed, but what counts as minor might be debatable…
Unreported information breaches
Barking and Dagenham said it did not believe the incident above warranted reporting to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the government’s data protection regulator. However, another request this week raises questions about how many, and what kinds of, incidents aren’t being reported.
A data breach which saw the entire contents of a rape survivor’s phone shared with her alleged attacker was just one of more than 4,700 incidents that Police Scotland decided were not serious enough to report to the information watchdog.
Last month, the Information Commissioner’s Office fined the force £66,000 after it wrongfully handed six unencrypted discs of detective constable Lianne Gilbert’s mobile phone data to her alleged rapist, his police federation representative and his solicitor in 2022.
In a letter, a police data officer said that the breach “did not meet the statutory notifiable requirements” for Police Scotland to report itself to the Information Commissioner (ICO).
A Freedom of Information request by STV News has revealed that 4,733 other incidents were also determined not to reach the threshold for reporting to the information watchdog over the last six years.
Project delays
Council reorganisations are set to take place across England in the next couple of years. So this story potentially works anyway facing a town hall shake-up.
Officials at Eastleigh Borough Council have warned that local government reorganisation (LGR) will have a negative effect on its “ability to deliver priority projects”.
The council’s risk register, obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service in a Freedom of Information request, says that the impending council shake-up could affect how quickly and effectively priority schemes are delivered.
Major projects being run by the Lib Dem-run council include the One Horton Heath housing scheme, which is set to deliver approximately 2,500 homes.
Weapons in schools
Knives, knuckledusters and a bullet are just some of the 29 weapons that were seized from children during a three-year period at schools in Northern Ireland.
A freedom of information request has revealed the numbers of weapons that have been seized by children at schools in Northern Ireland since the 2022/23 academic year. The youngest child that was found with a weapon was just 11 years old.
Housing need
People with the greatest housing needs are waiting months or even years in the highest priority bands of councils’ social housing registers in many parts of England, according to data compiled by The House.
Figures obtained by The House under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act focus specifically on people in each council’s highest priority band – which are meant to cater to the most severe housing needs – and separately those in each council’s second-highest priority band.
The figures show that applicants who were placed in social housing by 147 councils in 2024-25 had on average spent 319 days – around 10 months – in their council’s highest housing priority band. In 40 council areas the average wait in the highest priority band was more than a year.
Homelessness deaths
Some 56 homeless people in Edinburgh reportedly died in 2025, according to council data released under Freedom of Information legislation.
People in temporary accommodation made up 37 of the deaths, while those out of temporary accommodation made up 19.
The causes of the 56 total deaths were not reported in the response, but it is understood that at least some were due to natural causes.
Caught short
England is facing a public health crisis as a severe shortage of public toilets forces people to “suffer” across the country, health leaders have warned.
New analysis by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) reveals a “significant shortfall” in facilities, with numbers plummeting by 14 per cent since 2016.
The RSPH’s calculations show there are now 15,481 people for every public toilet in England.
Underpaying bosses
More people are reporting their employers for underpaying staff, data shared exclusively with Sky News Money has shown.
A total of 7,622 tip-offs about bosses failing to pay workers the national minimum wage were made to HMRC last year, according to figures obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by TWM Solicitors.
That’s up 360% since 2020/21, when 1,656 reports were made to the tax office.
Social media ban
Campaigners have warned lawmakers against “rushing into” a ban on social media for under-16s after it emerged the Government has carried out no internal modelling of its key impacts.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) revealed it has “not done any modelling or analysis” on the impact such measures would have in areas such as mental health, access to news and how young people might bypass any restrictions.
In response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Press Association, the department said internal modelling had not been carried out because “clear, agreed evidence does not currently exist”.
Temporary staff
On the back of a tip off that the Council had been spending more on temporary staff that in previous years, the T&A sent an Freedom of Information request to Bradford Council asking how much money had been spent on temporary staffing, which includes causals, agency and consultancy staff.
It was revealed that in the most recent financial year, running from April, 6 2025 to April, 5 2026, £29,968,052 was spent on temps.
In the financial year 2023/24, £23,745,262 was spent, and in the financial year 24/25 it was £23,842,014.
Filling in
The FOI submitted by the News & Star, revealed that 52 people in the control room at Cumbria Police Headquarters are fully qualified as officers.
Cumbria Constabulary has about 1,440 police officers, the number of fully qualified members of staff in the control room is therefore about 3.6 per cent of the force.
When asked why officers are carrying-out civilian work when they could be in the community, a police spokesperson said that a decision was made to utilise police in a call handling function about 10 years ago.
“This was a result of both austerity and the need to reduce demand on front line officers” they said.
Teachers’ pensions
Nearly half a million teachers are being left in the dark over what pension they will be entitled to as they await new figures following a landmark discrimination ruling.
Public sector workers saw changes to their schemes in 2015 which made their pensions less generous, but a court case – known as the McCloud judgement – found that there had been age discrimination based on how some staff pensions had been revalued.
A fix called the McCloud remedy was announced back in 2021 but though the remedy affects 592,000 teachers, 449,330 are still awaiting their recalculations, according to a Freedom of Information request submitted by financial advice firm Wesleyan to the Government.
High hedges
There have been more than 50 complaints to Herefordshire Council about high hedges in the last three years.
A freedom of information request unveiled figures under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, which empowers local councils to resolve such disputes.
A “high hedge” refers to two or more mainly evergreen or semi-evergreen trees or shrubs over two metres tall acting as a barrier to light.
Dropped kerbs
Figures released under a Freedom of Information request show that Hampshire County Council received 1,378 vehicle access enquiries in 2025, generating £271,093 in fees—around £200 per application.
According to the council’s own guidance, a standard application costs £211.90, with an extra optional £97 for a fast-track decision—taking the total to £308.90. And there’s no guarantee of success.
Unpaid fines
The number of unpaid parking fines reaching the bailiff stage is on the rise, more than doubling between 2021 and 2025.
Freedom of Information data from Herefordshire County Council shows a steady increase in referrals to bailiffs over the past five years, rising from 1,559 in 2021 to 3,293 in 2025.
The council says that bailiff referrals are only made as a last resort after repeated attempts to resolve the debt directly with the motorist.
Electric roses
Barnsley town centre’s striking ‘Yorkshire Roses’ will use an estimated £38,000 of electric per year.
A full price breakdown of the new additions, on County Way, has been revealed in a Freedom of Information document.
Three sculptures – one of which is 15 metres tall and two of which are 12 metres – cost a total of £1.891m to create. More than £530,000 was spent on their inbuilt lighting and audio, as well as £216,000 on galvanisation and paint. Insurance costs £30,000 per year.
Fireworks
Herefordshire Council’s full ‘explosives register’ list was revealed after a freedom of information act request.
A response has been issued by Herefordshire County Council to this claim which shows that 31 businesses in total are legally able to sell fireworks.
These include four Aldi stores, two Morrisons stores, an Asda store, a Tesco store and a Lidl.
Picture by Pixabay on Pexels
