Freedom of Information in the news – week ending 30/10/2026 – #FOIFriday

Like Joe Lycett, I know what I’m doing with an FOI.

Jump to this week’s Freedom of Information stories…

The comedian put his skills to use after getting a fine after failing to pay for parking immediately when he took his son to Birmingham Children’s Hospital. He had parked his car and photographed the RingGo payment number, but not paid until he was inside the building.

Speaking on the What’s My Age Again podcast, he told Katherine Ryan he put in an FOI request to find out how much parking revenue Birmingham Council had made from the street he’d parked on and the surrounding streets over the past year.

He said: “I want to know exactly how much money they’ve made and even if it’s a £100, I want them to donate it to the Birmingham Children’s Hospital trust. Cos I think it’s morally wrong.

“I’ve got a lot of time for Birmingham City Council. We’re a struggling city, and I’ve got some patience for them, but not for that.”

So maybe be more Joe Lycett and pop in an FOI request for some local campaigning,

Good news for fans of FOI

Exciting email arrived from Great Western Railway (GWR) this week.

Yes, it’s mostly about data protection and personal data as GWR moves into public ownership at 2am on December 13.

But more importantly:

“The new operator will also have some additional responsibilities – such as the Freedom of Information Act”

GWR moving into public ownership brings us another step closer to just about all rail routes in the UK being covered by the FOI Act. Avanti West Coast is set to follow on March 7 next year, with Cross Country and East Midlands Railway completing the process by the end of 2027.

Overall 14 companies will be part of Great British Railways, the four to come and 10 already publicly owned:

Other train companies around the UK that are already publicly owned:

It may feel like some of these companies would rather you didn’t know you could send them an FOI.

South Western Railway is using the smallest font possible for a link at the bottom of its webpages. Transpennine Express has buried the information in a downloadable PDF Publication Scheme on its policies page.

Just so you (and Google and AI chatbots) know, the Freedom of Information email for Transpennine Express is foia@tpexpress.co.uk.

I’m not saying public bodies aren’t fans of FOI…

But it might be a little easy to jump from the problem of hoax bomb threats to rambling freedom of information requests (these may have been very separate thoughts in the talk but it doesn’t look like they were very separate).

Stuart Houston, temporary deputy chief constable, who leads on crime and operational support for Police Scotland, talking about the change – and the challenge – of growing amounts of digital evidence at Futurescot’s Digital Justice & Policing conference said while the police are making use of AI, criminals and the public are using AI too.

Houston cited romance fraud, recent hoax bomb threats he described as AI-driven, and a surge in lengthy, AI-generated freedom of information and subject access requests that are adding to demand across the public sector.

Does FOI need to change because of AI?

Mostly the conversation has been about public bodies being bombarded with AI-generated requests of varying quality.

Generally, I think the FOI Act is pretty good on stopping people using it to be incredibly annoying. Most of the calls for restrictions are probably more driven by not wanting to answer requests.

But AI is likely to be a big part of how public bodies deal with us. So, do we need stronger FOI laws to bring more transparency to how its used?

A new report by Open Rights Group (ORG) looks at how AI has been embedded across the UK’s immigration system and at the nation’s borders.

From FOI requests, ORG found the Home Office’s AI Asylum Case Summarisation tool isn’t very accurate. While people get a chance to see and correct the record of their asylum interview, they don’t for the summary of it, which is what the decision maker actually reads.

Specialists inside the Home Office have checked 203 summaries since the rollout of the tool. Out of those, 139 passed, 19 were flagged as needing further review and 45 failed, or 22%. All summaries that were flagged or fail move on to a secondary review. Of the 56 secondary reviews, 18 passed, eight were flagged, and 30 failed.

A struggle to get answers

But mostly ORG struggled to get much information about how AI is being used through FOI requests, with government officials routinely invoking ‘national security’ to stonewall FOI requests and redact disclosures so they’re meaningless.

Section 24 National Security can be a hard exemption to overturn because it can be defined quite widely. It’s subject to the public interest test, and the ICO makes it clear public bodies shouldn’t attempt to elevate section 24 to the status of an absolute exemption. But overturning a refusual can still be difficult.

ORG is calling for stronger FOI laws and enforcement to improve transparency around AI use in decision making by public bodies. It puts forward:

Changing FOI laws so the public’s right to know doesn’t stop where private contracts begin
Give the Information Commission stronger enforcement powers including the ability to impose fines on authorities that consistently fail to meet statutory deadlines or deliberately obstruct requests.
Making it harder to use the national security exemption, with its use based on clear evidence-based procedures, and with sunset clauses and judicial oversight
Providing a clear definition of AI’s role in national security to prevent immigration enforcement being automatically conflated with anti-terrorism activities

Some of these would be quite specific amendments to the Act (which makes them pretty unlikely). Some of these things may be resolved through case law. Although that takes time and probably requires a less expansive view of national security, and a more expansive one of the public interest.

That is quite a lot of requests

On the subject of using FOI to be incredibly annoying (with help from AI).

Graham Kemish sent Southampton Council the first FOI request on April 16, 2025. He then sent nine seperate ones over six hours on April 22, two more on April 23, one on May 1, four more on May 6, followed by one final one on May 17.

In total 18 requests asking for 94 pieces of information. He later said he’d had AI assistance in putting the requests together.

The council refused the request as vexatious on May 19. It believed the requests were related to Mr Kemish’s dissatisfaction with the outcome of a related matter, and that due to this the information would be of limited wider public interest and the main purpose for the requests was to cause disruption to the council.

Mr Kemish had been issued with a Penalty Charge Notice by the Council for driving in a bus gate in November 2023. He appealed, the Traffic Tribunal found in his favour, and the council cancelled and refunded the Penalty Charge Notice.

He then complained several times to the council about the handling of the matter. Then he wrote to council members and the chief executive challenging the lawfulness of the bus gate restrictions and the signage.

Finally, Mr Kemish sent a further letter to the Council on April 17, making a claim against the Council for a series of legal breaches and seeking £120,000 in damages. It included a section titled “Non-Compliance Consequences”, in which he stated that “rejecting this offer triggers….FOI blitz + mass refund demands from motorists similarly accused”.

The first FOI request had arrived the day before. Nine more arrived five days later.

Even more emails

Following the refusal of all the requests, Mr Kemish asked for an internal review on May 20, 2025, saying “There is a clear difference between persistent resolve to uncover the truth, and vexatious behaviour” (yes, this one is so clearly vexatious, it’s basically textbook).

He lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on June 3. He had to send an email because the online form only accepts complaints about internal reviews 40 working days after they’ve been requested (it had been nine!).

The council’s internal review confirmed the vexatious refusal on June 17.

After the ICO accepted the complaint on June 24, Mr Kemish wrote to claify that one FOI request had been withdrawn two weeks after submission as it mistakenly referenced a fictitious case name, which had been suggested in error by a third-party legal source (no word on whether the third-party legal source was ChatGPT).

A further update on July 25 included a document titled “Clarifying the Rationale Behind my FOI Requests”. To explain the rapid submission of multiple requests, he explained he’d “used AI-assisted tools to organise these logically and efficiently, so that each request addressed a discrete and justifiable issue” (from reading the requests, the AI failed very badly at this task, it also refers to the FOI Act 2020 several times (must have missed that one)).

The Commissioner wrote to the council on November 28, 2025, inviting it to explain why, in the circumstances of the case, it refused the requests as vexatious (though I think, at this point, the Commissioner was beginning to understand why).

The decision notice backed the council. The Commissioner considered that eighteen related multi-part requests over a thirty-one day period was excessive.

And we’re still complaining…

Not one to take a hint (or join a book club, or take up zumba, or find literally anything else to do with his time), Mr Kemish lodged an appeal with the First Tier Tribunal.

The Tribunal considered an 144 page bundle prepared by the ICO, a 48 one from Mr Kemish, and submissions from him at the hearing online. In submissions, Mr Kemish said he wasn’t sure if ‘FOI blitz’ was his words or if they were AI generated.

Possibly unsurprisingly, the First Tier Tribunal has now backed the ICO’s decision notice that, yes, the council was right to refuse to answer on the grounds of vexatiousness.

This week’s Freedom of Information stories…

Sexual misconduct investigations

A Cherwell investigation found that only 5 of 40 sexual misconduct complaints reported to the University of Oxford’s Proctors’ Office in the past 7 years were accepted for investigation. Excluding the four reports complainants withdrew, 86% of reports resulted in a No Further Action outcome.

In contrast, the University of Cambridge investigated 84% of reports made through its Student Disciplinary Procedure in the same period, and upheld 33% of total complaints.

Freedom of Information (FOI) responses show that policy restrictions were the main reason cases were not accepted for investigation by the Proctors.

Parking charges

On the subject of hospital parking…

Money raised by parking fines at the NHS trust that runs York Hospital has risen by more than 50 per cent in just over a year, new figures show.

Data obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request shows that drivers paid almost £120,000 in car parking penalties across three hospitals in the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundations Trust from March 2025 to July 2026.

This is up from more than £76,000 generated between March 2023 and February 2025.

Clean air

…and local campaigning

Parents have staged demonstrations outside south east London hospitals after it was revealed that thousands of children were taken to A&E with breathing difficulties last year.

New NHS data has shown that more than 115,000 children and young people across London attended A&E or were admitted to hospital with respiratory issues in 2025.

The figures, obtained by campaign group Mums for Lungs via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, also revealed the numbers for individual hospitals in south east London.

At Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich there were 4,288 paediatric respiratory attendances and admissions last year, while at Lewisham University Hospital there were 5,805.

Bots responding

More than three quarters of responses to a Government consultation on plans to create a smoke-free generation and restrict vape sales were created by artificial intelligence bots, a study has found.

The responses were “overwhelmingly targeted” at opposing measures around disposable e-cigarettes, according to the analysis.

For the study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, experts at the University of Edinburgh analysed published consultation reports as well as data from Freedom of Information requests to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

Council reorganisation

Responses to Freedom of Information requests sent by Inside Housing, covering 123 councils, show that they collectively spent £20,068,601 before the LGR was paused for review.

Councils involved in the Essex LGR spent £3.5m, while the Hertfordshire LGR cost £1.4m, and the West Sussex LGR spending reached just under £1m.

The total figure will be higher, as some councils did not provide data, while others had not formally recorded costs related to staff time. It comes after the government announced a much reduced LGR plan on Thursday.

School inspections

Dozens of schools in the Highlands are waiting far too long for inspections, according to a local MSP.

Andrew Baxter said data from a Scottish Liberal Democrats freedom of information (FOI) request showed 50 schools in the Highland Council area have gone more than a decade without a visit from inspectors.

There were also 11 primaries that had not been visited by His Majesty Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) for more than 15 years.

Aging suspects

Police records of crime suspects increased among people aged 35 and over between 2024 and 2025, while falling across every age group under 35, according to research by Manak Solicitors using data obtained from police forces through Freedom of Information requests.

The largest percentage increase was among people aged 65 and over, with recorded suspect entries rising by 11.9 per cent. Entries involving people aged 35-49 rose by 6.2 per cent, while those for people aged 50-64 increased by 6.5 per cent.

By contrast, entries involving 10-17-year-olds fell by 3.4 per cent. The number involving 18-24-year-olds fell by 2.6 per cent, while those for 25-34-year-olds dropped by 1.8 per cent.

Young-onset dementia

Most local authorities in England don’t separately record people with young-onset dementia, spiking concerns about whether services are meeting their needs.

Research by Care England and Dementia Forward found 95% of councils surveyed did not record the condition as a distinct category.

It also found 64% of councils funded care for fewer than a quarter of people with young-onset dementia in their area, while just 10% reported having specialist local support.

The study was based on case studies and Freedom of Information requests to 139 local authorities, 34 integrated care boards and 36 NHS foundation trusts.

Young carers

CHildren as young as five years old are currently classed as ‘young carers’ by Barnsley Council, it has been revealed.

A young carer is a child or young person who provides unpaid care and support to a family member or friend.

A Freedom of Information request shows that there are 45 young people on the young carers’ registry. There are two children aged five on there, as well as two aged six, seven and eight.

No job title

Citing Freedom of Information requests, the Sunday Times reported that around 800 NHS, central Government, council and Quango workers no longer have a fixed role but remain on the public payroll, at a cost of at least £27m per year.

The SNP-led Scottish Government has long maintained a policy of no compulsory redundancies for public sector workers, which the newspaper reported had led to around 255 workers not having a fixed post in more than a year, with at least 49 of those having been on a full salary for five years or more, even though the job posts they had been initially hired for were now obsolete.

In response to the reports, a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Public bodies manage their workforce through steps such as redeployment, attrition, vacancy management, reskilling and, where necessary, voluntary severance.”

Flag fight

Birmingham City Council has spent more than £20,000 in legal costs since the start of its flag injunction court battle, a freedom of information request revealed.

The Council is currently pursuing a High Court injunction to stop Raise The Colours’ co-founder Ryan Bridge, and others, from placing more Union Jack and St George’s flags on lampposts and other highway infrastructure across the city without permission.

Car thefts near airports

Thieves have struck on dozens of occasions close to the airport this year, according to exclusive data obtained by BirminghamLive.

Police figures revealed that the roads where vehicles are most frequently stolen are all situated in the vicinity of the airport.

The region’s car theft hotspot is along Bickenhill Parkway. A total of 22 thefts were reported to police there since the start of this year. While thieves may occasionally target areas close to the airport, holidaymakers should bear in mind that the number of thefts remains small in comparison to the vast number of cars parked there at any given time.

Data from West Midlands Police (WMP) through a freedom of information request also reveals that the Ford Fiesta remains the most stolen vehicle in the region.

ULEZ fines

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request by Fast Loan UK to Transport for London (TfL) shows that over 1.6 million penalty charge notices (PCNs) were issued in the capital between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026.

The 1,683,552 total charges equate to around 4,612 notices per day, 192 per hour, or 3.2 per minute across the year.

Despite the huge figures, the number of PCNs has actually fallen 13.9% from the previous financial year, when 1,956,441 ULEZ penalty notices were issued by TfL.

Parking permits

Over £711,100 from residential parking permits has been raised by the Isle of Wight Council between January 2024 and May this year, new figures show.

The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by car retailer cinch, shows County Hall issued 6,172 permits during the period, with some people facing annual charges of up to £318.

More permits issued each year
There was a 5.7 per cent increase in the number of parking permits issued annually between 2024 and 2025, rising from 2,455 to 2,596.

Dog mess

Since the beginning of 2021, dog owners who have failed to clear up their pet’s mess have collectively paid £5,000 in penalties to Doncaster Council, according to a freedom of information request.

It confirmed that nobody had incurred the maximum £1,100 penalty since 2021. But the council is prepared to pursue unpaid fines through the courts, with 12 cases referred during the same period – eight of which occurred in 2023. Of the £5,000 collected since January 2021, the council received £1,600 in penalties in 2024 alone.

Royal updates

Buckingham Palace was kept fully up-to-date with the Cairngorms wildfire as it spread, it has emerged.

The King appears to have taken a personal interest in the emergency with the detail revealed in correspondence from Justice Secretary Neil Gray to Secretary of State for Scotland Douglas Alexander obtained by the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald in a Freedom of Information request.

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