It’s all about the Freedom of Information updates this week.
Jump to this week’s Freedom of Information stories…
Brighton and Hove Council’s slow FOI responses had already been flagged by its quarterly performance updates. It’s since had an enforcement notice from the Information Commission (IC).
In July, the IC noticed an increase in complaints about the council. When it investigated what was going on, it found Brighton and Hove had 276 overdue requests, including ones dating back to April 2025.
Not enough staff seems to be the main issue, with vacancies and sickness absence leaving the team with two people instead of three. Which has been flagged since September 2025.
Brighton and Hove Council has published its improvement plan, which includes:
- sorting out temporary and agency staff
- stop focusing just on trying to hit the 90% timeliness target, while leaving overdue requests in an unanswered backlog
- standardising workflows and case management to reduce duplication of work or things getting missed
- reinforce expectations with senior managers that FOI compliance is a shared corporate responsibility (because FOI officers can’t fail to answer requests alone)
- clearer reporting to senior leaders so they know when things are going wrong (up to director-level)
- use AI to review internal reviews, ICO complaints, upheld cases etc. to look for themes
No word on whether the information governance team is getting their own printer.
Organised refusals
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) central unit providing advice to individual police forces is getting attention again. Mostly because it turns out the advice is everyone should refuse the request.
The BBC has previously reported on the problems it faced with mass refusals on requests relating to surveillance and drugs. Now Times reporter George Greenwood has hit similar issues with identical refusals relating to crypto-currency FOIs.
He followed up with a subject access request to the unit to try and find out what had led to the coordinated refusal advice. And found individual requests to police forces had also been referred.
The last time the NPCC’s FOI unit came under scrutiny, it said it would stop recording the original requester’s identity when advising forces on how to answer FOIs. Then reversed course, saying those details helped them consider how released information could be used. But they were totally operating in an applicant blind manner.
As previously noted, and George points out, this all sounds like the things the Cabinet Office Clearing House was criticised for before it was disbanded. As with that, it might be time for someone, possibly the Information Commission, to take a closer look.
It’s your own time you’re wasting
Southampton Council might be a little bit psychic. It’s now received a decision notice overturning its use of the Section 14 vexatious refusal for a request about supernatural housing complaints. Just like it predicted!
Having spent a load of time and effort on an internal review and an Information Commission investigation (and not taking the hint to resolve this one informally), the council now needs to deal with the request all over again, and can’t rely on Section 14 to refuse it. Ironic given the reasoning for the first refusal was that dealing with the request would take up a disproportionate amount of council time.
Apparently I’m also a bit psychic. As predicted, the IC said the request had little value but not none, it might tell people about how the council handles unusual reports. The request didn’t use abusive language or appear to be part of a campaign of harassment so wasn’t vexatious in and of itself.
So the argument was about the burden of answering it. The council claimed, without specific categories in its systems for aliens and ghosts, it would have to manually review 16,633 notes for any relevant complaints, taking 138 hours.
The IC pointed out it recommends considering relying on Section 12 cost limits for refusal first where possible. Not least because Section 14 refusals tend to raise the chances of the requester complaining.
I can understand the council not wanting to get into a ‘how much searching does 18 hours get me’ debate with the requester, who had offered in the original request to reduce the time frame if five years was over the limit. But the 138 hour estimate would probably make the advice that it would be hard to find a short enough timescale that wouldn’t exceed the limit.
The IC does question whether the council would really need to take 138 hours and review 16,633 notes or whether it could be a bit more targeted (but that’s probably an argument for the next decision notice!).
One way to deal with requests like these is to be very literal on what information is being requested to reduce what needs to be considered. Only look at complaints that have come through the formal complaints process (anything else is a sparkling service request).
Broadly, there’s plenty of ways to sensibly deal with requests that don’t appear to be the best use of resources. However, Southampton might be a bit keen on declaring requests vexatious. Owen Boswarva points out they refused 5.6% of requests in 2025/26 using Section 14, more than double central government’s rate of 2.5%.
This week’s Freedom of Information stories…
Entry requirements
The mum of a disabled boy who got top marks in his chosen subject but was refused a place at Birkenhead Sixth Form College says entry requirements are not being applied consistently to all students, despite the college’s claims.
Finley Lamb, 17, from Wallasey, had planned to study Spanish at A-Level until the college withdrew his offer. While he got Grade 9 in his Spanish GCSE, he failed his GCSE Maths.
Birkenhead Sixth Form states that young people must achieve a pass in Maths and English to continue their studies. In a letter to Finley’s mum, Sara O’Donnell, the college’s principal, Rob Myatt, insisted the entry requirements are “applied consistently to all applicants”.
Dissatisfied, Ms O’Donnell submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to see how many students have been accepted onto courses at Birkenhead Sixth Form College despite not meeting the entry requirements.
The results of the FOI request showed that in the past four academic years, 199 “exceptions” to the college’s entry requirements have been made.
Living conditions
Soldiers in a Surrey army training camp have reported living in housing infested with rats, ants and mould.
In this year alone, service personnel at Pirbright Camp have complained of finding various pests in their homes and shared living spaces.
Complaint reports obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) through freedom of information laws laid bare the “unacceptable” living conditions some soldiers are facing while based at Pirbright.
Wasted cash
More than £25m of taxpayers’ money was written off by the Ministry of Defence over the past year after botched equipment deliveries, cancelled contracts, administrative errors and unused hotel rooms, according to figures obtained under freedom of information laws.
The scale of the so-called “fruitless” payments was more than double the annual average of £11m recorded between 2020 and 2024, and almost three times the £9m lost across the entire period from 2016 to 2019.
Tax enquiries
Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Price Bailey, the chartered accountants, shows that HMRC received 1,772 targeted information requests from foreign tax authorities in 2025.
That was the highest annual figure since 2019 and represented a 20 per cent increase from 2022, the first fully post-pandemic year, when HMRC received 1,472 requests.
The trend is moving in the opposite direction at HMRC. Requests sent by the UK tax authority to its overseas counterparts fell by 39 per cent between 2022 and 2025, from 697 to 424.
Housebuilding
Nottingham City Council has been ranked among the UK’s top 30 council house builders in a new national list.
The authority is 29th in Inside Housing magazine’s 2026 Biggest Council House Builders list, which measures housebuilding activity during the 2025/26 financial year.
The annual survey, based on Freedom of Information responses from councils across Britain, recorded 11,586 new homes completed by responding authorities during the year.
Housing waiting lists
According to a freedom of information (FOI) request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Cardiff council would need almost 30 times as many empty council homes to match the number of live applications.
The FOI request revealed that, as of 1 September, 2026, the number of empty council houses belonging to the council is only 351.
As of 1 September the number of people on the council’s housing list is 9,671, which is more than 27 times the number of empty homes.
Recycling
City of York Council recorded a household recycling contamination rate of just 4.31 per cent in 2024/25, placing it second in a UK-wide league table of more than 50 councils.
East Lothian topped the table with a rate of 3.95 per cent.
Every Can Counts, a not-for-profit recycling programme, compiled the data through Freedom of Information requests to 171 UK local authorities in April 2026.
Private prisons
Private prison operators in England and Wales have been forced to pay back £32.5 million to the Ministry of Justice since 2012 after missing performance targets.
The payouts – called ‘financial remedies’ by the MoJ, but effectively fines – are incurred for failures to meet targets written into contracts. Examples can include cells left out of use, missed healthcare appointments, staffing below the agreed level, or an escape.
MoJ figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request submitted by doctoral researcher James Stoddart reveal the full figures for the first time. They cover 18 jails and run from 2012/13 to the present.
Late night parking
More than £1m in additional revenue has been made for Liverpool Council since it scrapped free late night parking in the city centre. In July last year, it was finally confirmed parking charges would be extended in the heart of town until 11pm after a lengthy delay.
From July 1 last year to June 30, more than 143,000 tickets were purchased by drivers within the CPZ since it was changed from 6pm to 11pm.
A Freedom of Information request by the Liverpool Business Leaders group to the city council revealed an estimated £1.1m from parking that were wholly or partially within the new chargeable period.
Mega mortgages
Hundreds of buyers are saddling themselves with mega-mortgages on homes worth more than £5million, new figures show.
More than 5,000 hefty home loans were sold in the past five years, including 954 last year, according to Financial Conduct Authority stats.
Greater London has made up the bulk of the regulated mortgage sales since 2021, with 65 per cent, followed by the South East with 9 per cent.
Broken lift
A tram stop lift which has been out of action for more than a month this year alone has left those with accessibility needs feeling “excluded” from Murrayfield Stadium.
The frequently faulty lift at Roseburn Street, opposite the national rugby stadium, was unavailable for passengers for 35 days already this year, the equivalent of one day each week, according to a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Evening News.
AI training
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) trained up 128,779 employees in AI skills the past 12 months.
The figures were obtained via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, which was analysed by the Parliament Street think tank.
The data outlines participation across 12 AI programmes, ranging from introductory AI literacy to advanced machine learning. All learning was delivered by the Cabinet Office as part of its cross-government digital skills initiative.
The most popular programme was the ‘AI for All’ learning pathway with 73,045 completions for Part one and 53,001 completions for Part two, reflecting a strong demand for foundational AI skills, especially for people working frontline operations.
Tap to donate
A total of £8,666 has been given through ‘tap-to-donate’ points installed at Bootham Bar in York’s city walls and online in a pilot scheme since its launch in September last year.
One donation worth £400 was the single-largest made during the first year of the scheme which also allows people to give amounts of their choice online by scanning QR codes.
Council figures obtained through a freedom of information request showed the tap-to-donate points at Bootham Bar raised £8,136 while £530 was given online as of Monday, September 28.
Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash
