The point of Freedom of Information is you can ask public bodies for the information you’re interested in that they might hold and don’t currently publish.
Jump to this week’s Freedom of Information stories…
Publishing previous FOI request responses helps people see what others have asked. Useful for cutting down on people asking for the same thing. Can make it clearer what the public body might hold. And it helps expand the amount of information published.
There’s no requirement for public bodies to publish previous requests or have a disclosure logs. The FOI Act requires public bodies to have a publication scheme and then actually regularly publish the information they said they would.
What’s included is up to the public body. But Information Commission guidance says an FOI disclosure log is the kind of thing it’d expect to be included.
Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust has not updated its public responses to Freedom of Information requests online for six years.
A disclosure log page is a series of monthly tabs from January 2022 to December 2024 that just say ‘Your content goes here’. A responses page covers a handful of topics with information only up to March 2021.
FOI campaigner Diane Peacock has submitted several questions to the Trust’s board meetings about Freedom of Information performance. At October’s meeting she asked, “when will adequate resourcing be available to rectify staffing shortages, avoid delays and publish a disclosure log?”.
Anna Milanec, SaTH’s group chief governance officer told the meeting hopefully things would improve soon, as there’s been a small investment in software and training is ongoing.
She said, despite the empty disclosure log, the trust continues to publish a “large amount of information” online, adding: “We feel we are transparent in that way and are happy with that”.
Finding FOI-able comms
The problem of official business being carried out on unofficial channels is an ongoing one. It’s easy to send messages through WhatsApp, either for convenience or to try to avoid information being on the record.
All communications relating to official business are potentially covered by FOI regardless of what platform they’re on. But anything not added to official records risks being missed or lost. Or FOI officers are stuck trying to track down information across multiple places.
Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council has put forward a paper to require the disclosure of council related data from all messaging platforms. Staff who fail to do so could face disciplinary action.
The policy is fairly sensible. It’s mostly reminding people they should use council communication channels for council business. But if they don’t, they need to remember not to delete information and to make sure some record of it is captured in the council’s records management system.
This still needs to go to trade unions for consultation, with concerns about how it would be enforced.
Data breach
The fallout from the mistaken disclosure of spreadsheets containing the names and details of thousands of Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) staff and officers continues.
Two men appeared at Belfast Crown Court on Wednesday (October 13) and pleaded not guilty to terrorist charges arising from the data breach. Both are charged with collecting information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. These related to possessing spreadsheets and screenshots containing details concerning serving PSNI officers and employees.
The data breach, in August 2023, happened in response to an FOI request.
This week’s Freedom of Information stories…
Music events cancelled
A new report has shown the extent of racial bias in licensing against Black music events in London, while urging the government to assist in bringing change.
The REMEL Report (Race Equality In Music Event Licensing) found Black events face disproportionate cancellations, restrictions or shutdowns compared with white-led events of a similar size. The document states that this is often done with little explanation given and no clear route to appeal.
Within the report, Freedom of Information responses showed 60% of videos removed by the Met Police’s Project Alpha, covering social media intelligence gathering, were by Black performers, and almost 40% were by people aged 18-24.
Unhealthy ads
For cash-strapped councils, turning away much-needed income by restricting adverts for junk food, fossil fuels or other harmful products might seem like a policy they can ill afford.
But a new report, published by the advocacy alliance Sustain and carried out by a team at the University of Portsmouth, suggests otherwise.
It found no evidence that councils introducing healthier food advertising policies lost advertising revenue when compared to places without such a policy. The finding held for councils across the UK with different advertising sites (from bus shelters to benches), locations and contract arrangements.
Researchers sent freedom of information requests to all local councils in the UK. From the 360 responses received, only 38 councils provided enough data on the annual percentage change of revenue (between 2019-23) to allow for comparison. Three of those 38 councils had introduced healthier food advertising policies during that five-year period; the rest (35) did not have those policies.
Incidents in children’s homes
Almost 500 claims of violent incidents at work made by staff at Glasgow’s children’s houses have been submitted over the past years, new figures reveal.
A Freedom of Information Request (FOI) shows that the number of staff in 2023 based within children’s houses who claimed to have been injured, including psychologically, due to a violent incident at work sat at 148.
The figures dropped to 131 and 119 in 2024 and 2025 respectively and sat at 98 for the time period between January 1, 2026 and September 8, 2026.
Fire response time
Locating wildfires reported by visitors in remote parts of the Lake District is hampered by their unfamiliarity with the landscape, the area’s fire service has warned.
Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) met its 15-minute response target about 87% of the time this year but took 81 minutes on one call-out, according to figures obtained via a Freedom of Information request. Two in 2024 and 2025 took about 50 minutes.
Anti-social behaviour
A Freedom of Information request found that since its introduction in December 2025, the Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) has recorded zero breaches of its terms and has seen zero fixed penalty notices or other formal enforcement actions issued within York’s city walls.
Despite the fact there have been zero recorded breaches, some locals and business owners continue to complain of anti-social behaviour within the York area.
Disabled parking
MoneySuperMarket submitted Freedom of Information requests to councils to compile a Priority Parking Index, ranking local authority areas using measures including the number of Blue Badge holders, disabled parking bays and penalty charge notices issued for misuse of disabled bays.
Durham County topped the study’s ranking of the most challenging areas for Blue Badge parking, with a final score of 6.75.
The figures listed by MoneySuperMarket show Durham had 35,697 registered Blue Badge holders and 320 disabled bays – equivalent to 112 badge holders per bay. The authority also recorded 3,445 penalty charge notices relating to disabled-bay misuse.
Food help
Dozens of Birmingham City University students required support to access essential food, drink and other goods in the last academic year, a freedom of information request revealed.
In the 2024/25 academic year, the University’s financial assistance “student pantry” system was used a total of 140 times.
The University also said in the same academic year, 123 students accepted both a supermarket voucher and some physical items from the pantry, while 10 accepted food from the pantry but not a supermarket voucher.
A total of seven students accepted a supermarket voucher but not physical food from the pantry.
Cladding
A meeting of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority last month revealed there are still residential buildings of seven stories or more waiting for replacement works. The authority said they were “confident” they will meet the government deadline of December 31, 2029, for all high-rises to have their cladding replaced.
A Freedom of Information request to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority has revealed the buildings which are still waiting for unsafe cladding to be replaced. It includes all of the Parkside Place development – with Cambridge Fire Station on its lower floor – and the Parkside Terrace building is the tallest on the list at eight stories.
Weight-loss jabs
A Freedom of Information Request by the BBC has found that fewer than 800 Scots have received the jabs, and that less than half of Scotland’s health boards currently offer the treatment specifically for weight loss.
Each individual health board is also responsible for decisions on the availability of medicines, with only five offering the treatments. They are: NHS Forth Valley, NHS Borders, NHS Lothian, NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Western Isles and the NHS State Hospital.
The figures obtained by the BBC showed that a total of 705 patients had received injections for weight loss by September 2026.
Withdrawal penalty
New data reveals that around 45,000 Lifetime ISA (LISA) savers were penalised with unauthorised withdrawal charges more than once in 2024–25.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by smart money app Plum revealed the startling datapoint, which MPs sitting on the Treasury Committee were told HMRC couldn’t produce within their requested timeframe.
Currently, those who withdraw cash lose 25% of the withdrawal amount and can end up with less than what they put in despite the government bonus.
Translation costs
This does seem high for a translation (I’m in Wales, we send a lot of things out for translation). So it suggests a very long letter, very technical language needing a specialist translator, and/or an uncommon language.
Breckland Council paid £460.81 for the “translation and proof reading” of a “tenancy at risk” letter, on an invoice dated June 26.
The bill, paid to London-based firm Language Line Ltd, is in stark contrast to the council’s other recent translation costs. Just four days earlier, the council paid a different firm, Translate Plus, £20.94 to translate a letter to Romanian residents about waste collection.
The figures were revealed through a Freedom of Information request by the Eastern Daily Press, which asked the council to disclose all payments of £500 and below.
Taxi licence revoked
A Freedom of Information request to Bradford Council has revealed how many drivers have had their taxi licenses revoked after being convicted of driving while using a mobile phone.
Since 2024, 25 drivers have lost their licence for this reason.
Vandalism
Public toilets across the Highlands have had to be closed temporarily more than 50 times since 2023 due to vandalism, with three permanently closing their doors for the same reason.
Data gathered through a Freedom of Information Request (FOI) found that over the course of the last four years 25 public loos were hit by vandals, causing 55 closures.
Damage to three sites – at Alness, Bonar Bridge, and Station Brae, Fort William – led to decisions being taken to close them permanently.
School crossing patrols
Eleven school crossing patrol sites – including one in Alton – have been withdrawn across Hampshire, saving the county council around £66,000 a year, newly released figures show.
Information released under a Freedom of Information request shows Hampshire County Council has reviewed 30 school crossing patrol (SCP) sites since a cabinet decision in October 2024 relating to 156 approved locations.
Of the sites reviewed so far, 11 patrols have been withdrawn, 18 remain in operation and one is still under review.
Bus stops
Essex County Council spent more than £11,000 maintaining bus stops in the Colchester area over the past year, a Gazette Freedom of Information request has revealed.
Osborne Street stops in Colchester city centre needed the most work, costing £1,371.68 between September 16, 2025 and September 15, 2026.
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