The Scottish Government is having another week of it Freedom of Information-wise.
Jump to this week’s FOI stories…
It did manage to score a victory in the seemingly never-ending saga1 involving several FOIs into an investigation into Nicola Sturgeon’s conduct in relation to complaints about her her predecessor Alex Salmond.
The Scottish Information Commissioner had ruled the public interest in releasing the communications relating to appeal on whether the information was held outweighed the public interest in refusing it because of legal professional privilege.
That decision was complicated as the government hadn’t shared the withheld information (they don’t have to when its legal advice relating to the FOI Act), making it harder to fully know if the exemption was correct.
However, the court found the bar for the public interest test for information with legal professional privilege has to be very high. In this case, it was more of interest to the public than in the public interest (as this request is kind of removed from the original issue).
The court also felt the Commissioner had been unhappy the withheld information wasn’t shared with him, and that was a factor, in their view an illegitimate factor, influencing his decision.
This all seems to reflect the increasingly fractious relationship between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Information Commissioner.
The Commissioner has said he can “no longer trust” the Scottish Government to handle information relating to the Salmond files unsupervised. The Scottish Government has said freedom of information requests are “handled with the highest standards of impartiality and integrity”.
A lack of trust
This whole back and forth may be contributing to a wider distrust of the Scottish Government and its handling of FOI.
Sam Taylor, from pro-union think tank These Islands, is questioning the Scottish government’s political neutrality after it emerged a pro-independence podcaster was offered help with an FOI data request, and he wasn’t.
Correspondence released under freedom of information shows government officials writing to William Thomson, the man behind Scotonomics, in response to his FOI request for details on Scottish Government bonds.
As the request was likely to breech cost limits, the letter says: “As a first step, we can offer a meeting with the officials leading this programme of work to discuss and clarify your request”.
Mr Taylor asked for a sit down with officials to help refine his FOI request on government bonds. He was instructed to contact the cabinet secretary for finance, Shona Robison, and ask for a meeting with her.
The Scottish Government has said the situations weren’t the same. It said the first involved offering help to refine and overly broad FOI request. The second was a general request for a meeting to discuss information already released under FOI.
Just a bit of advice…
Putting aside whether this is evidence of Scottish Government bias, the offer of help was a generous one.
If you’re not sure if you’re asking a question to the right public body, or you’re struggling to work out how to ask for the information you want, it’s a handy part of the Act to make use of.
Generally the advice and assistance involves explaining what information is likely to be held or not. And, in a case like this, why a request might be likely to breach cost limits and any possible ways to reduce its size and complexity.
Usually this is a email reply, maybe the offer of a phone call with an FOI officer. Offering to set up a meeting with several officials from a department is a bit more unusual. Not least because it’s more time consuming given the number of FOIs most places get.
And Scotland has some very enthusiastic users of the FOI Act. Not least the various opposition parties.
With Scottish Parliament elections coming up in May, everybody is likely looking for as much information as possible to use to argue the SNP Government is doing a bad job. And as you can see from this week’s FOI stories, with so many requests, doubling up ideas is likely.
Enthusiastic use of the FOI Act is apparently a bad thing
The third season of The Capture includes a character, James Whitlock, portrayed as a potentially violent extremist making FOI requests to the Home Office as part of his obsession with illegal immigration.
In one scene, lead character Rachel Carey, the police officer leading the investigation is told by a colleague: ‘Ma’am, it looks like Whitlock got hold of those Home Office documents via Freedom of Information request. He made a total of nine requests during his time in prison.’
She responds: ‘Nine Freedom of Information requests?’
She is then told: ‘He accused the government of covering up the true stats on undocumented migrants.’
Another colleague then comments: ‘It’s fair to say it’s something of an obsession for the lad.’
Apparently making nine FOI requests is a shocking obsessive campaign against the government. In the real world, I’m not even sure you’d manage to get a vexatious refusal for that. It also misses the reality that the kind of requests the drama suggests were being made would probably just get you a Section 21 refusal as the Home Office already publish those stats.
However, the outrage has seen Reform’s Zia Yusuf come out in defence of the Freedom of Information Act (possibly anything in pursuit of giving the BBC a kicking). Which might be a timely show of support.
Meanwhile in FOI restriction attempts
FOI is popular. And not just in a lots of requests way.
A poll commissioned by Ontario’s largest public sector union shows widespread disapproval of the government’s plan to exempt the records of the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants, and their offices from (FOI) laws.
Abacus Data surveyed 1,000 Ontarians between March 20 and 23, and found 60% of those asked oppose the FOI changes, while 24% support them. Another 16% are unsure.
There is strong disapproval of making the FOI changes retroactive, with 73% saying the move shouldn’t be allowed. People were also sceptical about the government’s motives, with 64% believing the new restrictions are more about reducing accountability than modernizing the system.
This week’s FOI stories…
Violence in schools
Violent incidents recorded in Scotland’s schools have more than doubled since the last Holyrood election, figures obtained by Scottish Labour have shown.
Since 2021-22, the number of violent incidents recorded in secondary schools soared by 182% from 2,413 to 6,809.
Violence in primary schools has surged by 113% in the same time, from 12,075 to 25,770.
Assaults on teachers
According to data released through a Freedom of Information request, 2,998 incidents involved violence by pupils directed at head teachers, teachers, and support staff between March 1, 2025, and February 28, 2026.
The same period saw 1,158 assaults between pupils, 98 cases of verbal assault, and 733 instances of physical aggression by pupils toward teachers.
Assaults compensation
Half a million pounds has been paid out to teachers in Glasgow in compensation for physical assaults since 2019.
It shows that since 2019/20, there were 80 claims for compensation, including 17 from teachers and 52 from support for learning workers.
All were the result of assaults from pupils.
Court backlogs
The number of cases waiting to be dealt with by crown courts in England and Wales has hit a record high of more than 80,000 cases.
There were 80,203 outstanding cases at the end of last year, up 8% on the 74,106 recorded in the previous 12 months, according to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures.
Figures obtained by the Press Association under freedom of information laws show 2,600 crown court trials in England and Wales are not listed until at least 2028, with 29 not due to be heard until 2030.
Cases in the backlog include more than 200 rape trials, according to the MoJ court listings records as of January 29.
Unreasonable
Councils have paid out more than £20m in in legal costs and expert fees during appeals to overtun their ‘unreasonable’ planning refusals.
Sky News’s four-month investigation using Freedom of Information (FOI) laws asked councils in England about the number and cost of unreasonable decisions. Those are ones that have been overturned on appeal by the Government’s Planning Inspectorate as ‘unreasonable’.
Of those that replied, Cornwall Council had the most at 40, followed by North Yorkshire Council with 38 and Bromley Council with 27. However, more than 100 local councils did not respond to the FOI requests, while hundreds more only released partial data.
AI use
Back in July last year, the UK government signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI, the tech firm behind ChatGPT, with much fanfare about harnessing artificial intelligence to “address society’s greatest challenges”.
A freedom of information (FoI) request asked the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) for information about trials conducted under the memorandum, which said the company would work with civil servants to “identify opportunities for how advanced AI models can be deployed throughout government and the private sector”.
The department replied that it held none of this information and had “not undertaken any trials under the memorandum of understanding with OpenAI”.
Trapped cars
Vehicles have got stuck in a guided busway’s car traps 127 times since the start of 2020, official figures show.
Cambridgeshire’s guided busway takes modified buses along a dedicated track – with no access for cars – and serves Cambridge, St Ives and Huntingdon.
Last month a police officer responding to an emergency was given a temporary driving ban after falling foul of the trap at Station Road in St Ives which, with 73 cases, has the highest number of vehicles reported to have got trapped.
Confiscated
Hunreds of illicit items have been seized at Ayrshire’s courthouses in the last three years, despite the region’s two sheriff courts going for large periods without any security cover.
Figures released following a Freedom of Information request by Ayrshire Weekly Press reveal that almost 400 items deemed “inappropriate to take into a courtroom” have been confiscated at Ayr and Kilmarnock Sheriff Courts between 2023 and 2025.
This total includes 59 knives, a further 45 bladed or pointed articles, and 38 syringes or needles.
Landlord fines
While landlords face rising penalties under the Renters’ Rights Act, councils across London are collecting only a fraction of the fines they have issued.
Research from the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) show boroughs imposed almost £8.7m in civil penalties between 2023/24 and 2024/25 but recovered less than £3m. In total, more than 1,300 penalties were issued across the capital in that period.
Car club parking
High charges from some London councils may have contributed to the exit of car club operator Zipcar from the UK at the start of the year, according to a network of over 140 environmental NGOs.
Independent research commissioned by Clean Cities found that car club parking tariffs far exceeded the price for parking a private car, with maximum costs averaging more than £900 per year per shared car.
Kensington & Chelsea had the highest maximum tariff for a car club parking permit, and could be charging up to £2,382 for a single car club permit. Merton charged £80, while other councils didn’t charge for bay permits for car clubs.
Investigations
Maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), which runs the Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital, are currently subject to the largest independent review in NHS history.
The Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates nurses and midwives, said it has 85 open cases relating to maternity staff in Nottingham, 15 of which are at an investigation stage.
The GMC, meanwhile, refused to reveal how many doctors were subject to ongoing cases when asked by Nottinghamshire Live.
Just six doctors across Nottingham’s hospitals have been referred to the GMC between 2013 and August 2025, a Freedom of Information request made by Nottinghamshire Live shows.
Bird poisoning
Nature lovers across Wales were horrified in September when a White Tailed Sea Eagle disappeared near Newtown, Powys, with fears it had been illegally killed. The rare bird’s radio transmitter had been cut off and hidden on some moorland.
New information collected by the wildlife group Wildlife Poisoning Research UK (WPRUK) has found there have been a number of wildlife poisonings in the area where the transmitter was found. Data on cases of deliberate poisoning of birds has been obtained using Freedom of Information requests.
Since 2012 at least 18 birds have been killed in this area by suspected poisoning, including 11 ravens, 4 red kites, 2 buzzards and 1 crow. With so many birds killed in this area and the indiscriminate nature of these toxins, the group is questioning whether the eagle was poisoned as well.
Bird shooting
Each year a group of men from the Isle of Lewis travels to the remote uninhabited island of Sula Sgeir. They go there to kill young gannet seabirds, known as “guga”, as part of a traditional hunt.
The activity is carried out under licence from NatureScot. Last year, it allowed the killing of 500 birds and said this number is unlikely to affect the long-term stability of the gannet population.
Wildlife advocacy group Protect the Wild used a freedom of information request to obtain documents about the island’s gannet population. In a scientific assessment used to inform the 2025 licence, NatureScot’s adviser warns that Sula Sgeir is the only Special Protection Area (SPA) for gannets in Scotland whose population has shrunk.
Between 2001, when the island first became an SPA, and 2024, the number of apparently occupied nesting sites at Sula Sgeir fell by almost 2%. Meanwhile, all other colonies showed increases between 9% and 314%.
Bird feeding
Some 143 councils in England and Wales have hit people with more than 44,000 penalty notices under so-called Public Space Protection Orders in the past three years.
Data revealed under freedom of information laws showed town halls doling out fines for “wild bird feeding”, “obscene gestures” and “not presenting bins correctly”.
Slow moving traffic
The House of Lords is to remove a controversial team of ‘traffic marshals’ regularly patrolling Parliament’s internal roads to prevent politicians from being run over by cars doing just 5mph, after spending more than £5m on them.
The safety officials have been placed at key points within the Westminster estate on safety grounds since 2019 while renovation works have been carried out.
Figures revealed under a freedom of information request suggest the cost of having them cover alleged trouble spots on the eight-acre site has passed £5million in total.
Image by Erik Karits on Pexels
- Quick(ish) background:
Investigation finds Ms Sturgeon did not breach the code. A redacted report is released
Original FOI:
Request for all the information gathered in the investigation is made. Scottish Government says it doesn’t hold that.
Court eventually rules the Scottish Government does hold that.
Scottish Government has to reconsider original request. It says some of the information asked for is available already and refuses to release the rest. Scottish Information Commissioner says some of information was correctly withheld but some parts should be released.
The Scottish Government accepts it has to release some of the information, appeals other parts of the decision
Scottish Government misses deadlines to release some of the information requested in the original FOI request. Scottish Information Commissioner threatens legal action.
Redacted files relating to the first FOI request are released. Some have to be taken down for further redactions.
Follow-up FOI 1
FOI request is made for all communications related to the court appeal about the information being held.
Some redacted information is released and the rest is refused. Scottish Information Commissioner says it should be released.
Scottish Government goes to court to argue it some of it shouldn’t as its subject to legal professional privilege.
Follow-up FOI 2
FOI request is made for the legal advice related to the court appeal about the information being held.
The Scottish Government refuses the request. Scottish Information Commissioner says it should be released and it actually is.
The Scottish Information Commissioner says the government didn’t actually release all the legal advice and he’s considering legal action. ↩︎
