There’s two ways withheld personal information may be released under the Freedom of Information Act.
A decision by the Scottish Information Commissioner manages to cover both of them.
NHS Tayside received a Freedom of Information (FOI) request asking about an independent report on brain surgeon Sam Eljamel’s employment.
The disgraced former head of neurosurgery at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee is believed to have harmed more than 200 patients, with some said to have had life-changing injuries.
Section 38 exemption
The health board partially refused the request, which asks for the report, as well as background information and communications. While some information was released, the health board said some information wasn’t held. It also said most of the rest couldn’t be released on the grounds that it contained personal data.
The decision partially overturns the refusal. Some of the personal information isn’t actually personal information. For other personal information, there’s a legitimate interest in releasing it.
Personal information is information that could, directly or indirectly, identify a living person. But if it doesn’t identify anyone, it’s not personal information and it’s not covered by the exemption.
In this case, the Scottish Information Commissioner took the view that some job titles were too generic to identify any individuals. Too many people have the same job title, particularly including numbers over the years, for it to be personal information.
The legitimate interest
Other information was personal information but the applicant’s legitimate interest in the requested information outweighed withholding it.
The Scottish Information Commissioner accepted the Applicant, and the wider public, have a legitimate interest in scrutinising the response of the Authority to the conclusions of the independent report. The case was one of significant public concern. Releasing the information would be the only route to doing this.
Weighing the legitimate interest in the release of the information against the rights of those whose personal information it is, the Scottish Information Commissioner decided junior staff wouldn’t have any reasonable expectation their details could be shared.
But he concluded senior staff are more likely to be named publicly in relation to their roles, and more likely to have been connected to the investigation into Mr Eljamel during previous media coverage. As such they might reasonably expect their names to be shared.
For personal information relating to Mr Eljamel, the Scottish Information Commissioner found there was overwhelming public interest in these matters. With an ongoing criminal investigation, Public Inquiry and Independent Clinical Review, and extensive media coverage, he was not persuaded “Mr Eljamel could suffer from any additional reputational harm” if the personal data was released
Targeting Freedom of Information requests
Citroen seems to have learnt that sending FOI requests to all and sundry isn’t likely to get you a useful response.
The car company has launched a Better Roads Manifesto, setting out ideas for how local authorities could cure the scourge of potholes (it’s always about the potholes).
As part of its research, Citroen sent FOI requests to the country’s 154 local highway authorities. One-in-seven authorities said it might take up to three months to fix a pothole once reported. Stoke-On-Trent admitted that the longest its residents could wait for a road repair is 357 days.
Last time Citroen was doing FOI research, it sent 424 requests to councils asking about potholes. Which was impressive as there aren’t 424 councils, and most of the councils that do exist aren’t responsible for roads.
Presumably having had a load of non-responses last time, this attempt was a bit better targeted.
This week’s Freedom of Information stories…
Unregistered children’s homes
Collectively, Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley and Wirral Councils spent £119.6m on funding private children’s homes services in 2025/6, according to responses to Freedom of Information requests.
All services are legally obliged to register with Ofsted, which is required to inspect them twice a year.
In Knowsley, there are currently four children from the borough living in unregistered homes. Liverpool City Council said that it was aware of unregistered homes operating in the borough and that two local children were living in one.
Sefton Council said that it knows of 65 unregistered homes within its boundaries, but none of its young people are housed in one.
Unspent money
Kirklees Council has been found to have over £14m in unspent Section 106 money intended for the community – with some dating back as far as 1999, an FOI has revealed.
Section 106 funding is given by property developers, who pay money or provide services – such as affordable housing, new school places, or road improvements – to local councils to offset the local impact of new building projects.
A Freedom of Information request found the total figure of unspent Section 106 Monies as of the current financial year is £14,501,613.10 across 36 applications, with some of the funding dating back decades.
For example, in the Cleckheaton Ward, £20,000 was received between 1998 and 1999 to offset the impacts caused by building a residential development near Broomfield Terrace, but it was never spent.
Inaccessible
There were almost 11,000 people in the North West waiting for an accessible or adaptable home from their council in 2025.
ITV News sent freedom of information requests to every council in the North West, which revealed 2,208 wheelchair users were waiting for a suitable home in our region.
And those are only the councils that still have housing stock.
ITV News found the local authorities with the longest waitlists were Wigan, with more than 1,700 people waiting, followed by Cheshire East, which had 1,400 people on their list.
Social workers
The number of full time social workers employed by Glasgow City Council has increased over the last three years – but there are still more than 70 vacancies left unfilled.
Figures obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request and shared exclusively with the LDR service shows that between 2025-2026 there were 994.03 full time equivalent (FTE) social workers compared to 948.06 and 928.83 in 2024 – 2025 and 2023 -2024 respectively.
Between 2025-2026 there were 73.64 (FTE) social worker vacancies compared to 75.68 in 2024-2025 and 78.65 between 2023 – 2024.
Maternity complaints
Complaints about maternity services have risen by more than a third in a year, with more than 830 submitted in Scotland; 230 more than the previous year.
Freedom of Information figures obtained by STV News reveal maternity complaints rose by more than a third last year to 833, bringing the total to over 3,000 since 2020.
Low-tech approach
Twenty-five years after the government’s first push to digitise the NHS, an investigation by The BMJ reveals that only about a fifth of hospital trusts in England are using fully electronic systems for clinical record-keeping.
Responses to freedom of information (FOI) requests show that just 39 out of 184 trusts (21%) reported using paperless systems to document clinical notes, while 79% (145) said they still rely on pen and paper to some extent. Just a quarter (45) reported using fully electronic systems for prescribing medications.
The figures have not shifted much since a similar BMJ audit of trusts in 2023, suggesting the drive to digitisation in the NHS continues to stagnate.
Climate change
Just 20 staff, out of 6,613, are working on climate adaptation within a key government department tasked with protecting the environment and maintaining food security, a freedom of information request has revealed.
The officials make up 0.3% of staff within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Solar panel fires
UK fire services attended 212 fires involving solar panels in 2025, up from 91 in 2022. The UK’s installation count surpassed two million for the first time in March 2026 and stood at 2,047,225 as of May 2026.
DC cabling and connectors were the leading source of fires in 2025, accounting for 49 incidents, nearly double the 26 recorded in 2024. The solar panel itself caused 36 fires, battery banks 23, and inverters 19.
Swimming lessons
Children at English primary schools with more pupils on free school meals are less likely to leave able to swim 25m, BBC research has found.
While 72% of Year 6 children on average left school able to swim 25m in 2024-25, this drops to just 55% for schools with a higher proportion of disadvantaged children.
A BBC Freedom of Information request to the DfE has revealed the proportion of Year 6 pupils at individual state schools, excluding special schools, who are able to meet the targets.
Healthcare providers
Great Western Hospital spent more than a million pounds on third-party healthcare services, it can be disclosed.
A Freedom of Information request reveals the insourcing providers used by the Swindon hospital to deliver clinical services between April 2025 and March 2026.
Insourcing involves hiring external third-party clinical providers to deliver medical services, procedures, or diagnostic tests inside NHS hospitals and facilities, usually by using unused NHS equipment and rooms during evenings or weekends.
Healthcare Business Solutions (UK) received the most of the money from GWH, with £794,597.44 spent on dermatology and £22,892.26 spent on plastics.
Car seats
UK police forces issued 5,533 fixed penalty notices to parents and drivers for child car seat and seatbelt offences between 2023 and 2025.
The offences varied from no seat being used at all, to the wrong seat for the child’s age or size, or no seatbelt at all, according to data obtained by Confused.com through Freedom of Information requests sent to UK police constabularies.
Under UK law, children must use an appropriate child car seat from birth until they are either 12 years old or 135cm tall, whichever comes first. After this point, they can legally move onto an adult seat belt.
Wasted meds
New figures, revealed by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), estimate that unused drugs amounted to nearly 3,400 tonnes and cost the NHS upwards of £480 million.
The waste, uncovered through Freedom of Information requests, is equivalent in weight to 560 female African Forest elephants or 3,000 2015 Ford Fiestas.
Tool theft
New data released under a Freedom of Information request by builders’ merchant Travis Perkins shows that West Yorkshire Police recorded 6,033 tool theft offences across the force area between 2024 and May 2026, including 1,475 in Bradford.
Across West Yorkshire, 2,997 offences were recorded in 2024, 2,194 in 2025, and 842 in the first five months of 2026.
Private ambulances
Yorkshire Ambulance Service has spent over £5 million on private ambulances across South Yorkshire within a single year, as it deployed additional crews and vehicles to manage increasing demand and hospital handover delays.
Freedom of Information Act data reveals expenditure on private ambulance services rose from £2.78m in 2021/22 to a peak of £5.14m in 2023/24, before dropping to £4.35m in 2024/25 and £2.41m in 2025/26.
The data also demonstrates that private providers attended thousands of emergency and urgent incidents throughout the five-year period.
Caught smoking
Prominent UK unis – including many from the Russell Group – have recorded hundreds of students vaping and smoking in their accommodation halls since 2024, according to Freedom of Information requests.
The University of Greenwich is the uni which recorded the most incidents of students vaping or smoking in uni-owned accommodation. Greenwich caught out 727 students for doing this over the last few years. Although the University of Greenwich sent out formal warnings to 86 of these students, none of them were fined for smoking or vaping.
Cosmetic treatment
Young people are feeling increased pressure to undergo unregulated and at times dangerous cosmetic procedures, Inverclyde’s MSP has said – as fresh figures showed the scale of harm caused by botched surgeries.
A new survey of Scottish medical workers has revealed that more than one in three had treated patients who had suffered complications from unregulated cosmetic procedures.
The data, released through a freedom of information request, showed 63 per cent of those who had treated the patients said the number seeking such care has increased.
Pest problems
Rats, mice, and fleas were amongst the most common reasons pest control was called out 359 times to Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in a four-year period.
The figures were presented in a response to a Freedom of Information application request which revealed the hospital called out pest control 91, 92, 131, and 45 times in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively.
Stray dogs
New figures obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that stray dog intake has more than tripled in Warrington, rising steadily from 31 in 2021 to 95 in 2025.
Despite the surge, the number of dogs reclaimed by owners has remained low, falling to just 15 in 2025—around one in six.
The number of dogs being euthanised has also climbed, rising from zero in 2021 and 2022 to five in 2025.
Lack of trains
South Western Railway’s diesel fleet has been hit by mounting reliability issues on West of England Line.
Services between Yeovil and Exeter have been halved to one train every two hours since August 10, with many services having fewer carriages than normal. Journey times have increased by half an hour.
Responding to a request made by a passenger under the Freedom of Information Act, SWR stated that on one day in June, 14 of its Salisbury-based diesel trains were unavailable due to maintenance. Of those, 11 were unplanned failures.
SWR plans for up to 8 of its Class 158 and 159 units to be out of service at any time. On this day, therefore, it was 6 trains short of what it needed.
Poor choice of mascot
Wes the Pigeon is an animated bird-fluencer who appears South Western Railway’s TV and online ads and is described by SWR as an avian ambassador.
But it’s been revealed that bosses at the train company ordered the shooting of 250 pigeons over a 16-month period.
Artwork
Three works by Banksy have so far cost the public almost £150,000 in cleaning operations, security and administration, with the bill on the largest of the three still rising.
The most expensive to remove is a mural that appeared on the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 8 September 2025, depicting a judge in a wig battering a protester with his gavel.
The Ministry of Justice has since spent £50,000 attempting to remove the paint from the Grade II listed building’s stonework, with a further £35,300 on security and staff overtime, bringing the total for that single work to more than £85,000.
The figures were disclosed through Freedom of Information requests.
No artwork
Freedom of Information requests by the BBC found Kent County Council sold 418 artworks in total between May 2025 and April 2026 and was the only council in Kent to do so.
As of 30 April, the county council owned 1,231 works and said none of its collection was on display.
Much of the art was sold at auction in July 2025 for about £40,000. Art sold included works by Victor Passmore, Anthony Gross and Australian artist Sir Sidney Nolan.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
