Some official information can be hard to access through Freedom of Information.
Jump to this week’s Freedom of Information stories…
And not even because of exemptions. If the information is in private emails or Whatsapps (particularly those with auto-delete on), it can be hard to know it’s there and harder to get hold of.
Sometimes that’s deliberate.
The Government has launched a review of the use of non-corporate communication channels (NCCCs) – such as personal messaging apps – for Government business. It will look at what’s being used and how, including what gets retained and disappearing messages, and make recommendations.
While the review doesn’t directly reference FOI, what it finds and any recommendations are likely to have implications for requests about official communications. Many of the problems with using unofficial channels have been come up in relation to FOI requests.
All information relating to official business by bodies subject to the FOI Act is covered by FOI, regardless of where exactly it is. It can be held on the public body’s behalf even when its not in their systems.
But having information outside official systems usually means it usually only gets counted as part of the public body’s records if it gets added to them. Which doesn’t happen if its existence isn’t commonly known and those who do know about it forget to add it for retention, decide it isn’t relevant, or choose to delete the information instead.
Information not held
The Scottish Information Commissioner launched a (later delayed) investigation into reports the Scottish Government had been deleting messages relating to key pandemic decisions rather than making sure they were kept, and potentially FOI-able.
The Welsh Government had various problems with missing messages during the Covid inquiry.
In a ministerial group chat on August 17 2020, then-health minister Vaughan Gething wrote: “I’m deleting the messages in this group.
“They can be captured in an FOI [Freedom of Information request] and I think we are all in the right place on the choice being made.”
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) launched an investigation in July 2021 into the use of private correspondence channels by Ministers and officials at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the pandemic.
It concluded that using such channels was ‘lawful’ but called for a review into their use (it’s only taken the Government four years). The DHSC was issued with an FOI practice recommendation to improve how it dealt with information held in personal accounts and a reprimand relating to data protection and the security of personal information.
Enforcement action impact
The ICO has been a bit more proactive in issuing enforcement action for poor FOI performance in recent years. It doesn’t seem that proactive about putting out press releases about it.
However, public bodies do seem to have noticed.
An internal audit at Windsor and Maidenhead Council has declared FOI performance a medium organisational risk to the council as a result of increased ICO scrutiny. Non-compliance with FOI regulations could lead to financial and reputational damage to the council (probably not, it quite often feels like people who do public sector risk assessments don’t get out much).
The council is not responding to 95% of requests within 20 working days (excluding permitted extensions), which is considered good performance by the ICO. The FOI department works great, the issue is hold-ups while waiting for other departments to send information to them.
Performance scandalously fell to an adequate 92% in 2025. In comparison, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust was given a practice recommendation in May for poor performance with on-time responses at 42% to 56% across the 2025/26.
The audit in Windsor and Maidenhead Council recommended better systems for proactively publishing information and more training for everyone.
But how does that make you feel?
The Scottish Information Commissioner has issued guidance on using AI for FOI requests and appeals.
Having recently said he will pause investigations into multiple complaints if he thinks they heavily involve AI, the Commissioner says these probably won’t get investigated in the first place.
He warns he’s unlikely to support unchecked, machine-generated appeals to his office. The FOI Act already allows the Commissioner to refuse to investigate ‘frivolous’ or ‘vexatious’ appeals. The guidance says appeals which appear to be largely machine-generated or contain AI hallucinations are more likely to fall into this category.
This always seemed like the issue with the new rules on AI appeals. There were already rules that could be used (and seemed likely to have been used).
Otherwise, the tips are a mix of sensible (’if you don’t know what your request is on about, the FOI officer probably won’t either’) and some odd phrasing about focussing your internal review request on “why you are unhappy with the response”. As I suspect the issue is people using AI to bridge the gap between how they feel and how to write it, I’m not sure this advice is going to solve much.
Positive Freedom of Information headline
Surge in Freedom of Information requests prompts the hiring of more staff
The staff member isn’t quite hired. But at least the response to more requests is trying to get more resources to meet demand, rather than trying to make requesting information harder.
The District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board (DNSSAB), in Ontario, Canada, saw a 26% increase in FOI requests from 67 requests in 2024 to 91 in 2025. And already there have been 71 requests for information in 2026.
Chairman Mark King said there hadn’t been any new employees hired to complete the new work. Getting additional staff would require lobbying at the provincial level to cover the extra cost, he said.
This week’s Freedom of Information stories…
Evicted to provide homelessness accommodation
Multiple London councils are buying up homes for temporary housing without any knowledge of whether people are being evicted as a result of the sales.
Data obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed how 11 of the capital’s authorities are in the dark as to whether evictions took place ahead of the sales, with many simply claiming the removal of former tenants was the responsibility of the previous landlord.
Other authorities, including Enfield, were aware of renters leaving properties prior to purchase, with two of their households recorded in 2024 as having been evicted via Section 21 notices, known as no fault evictions which are now illegal.
‘County lines’
Shock new data has revealed an increase in ‘county line’ drug gangs exploiting children to act as drug mules in Scotland.
Data released by Police Scotland following a Freedom of Information request by the Daily Record revealed an increase in the number of children involved in the last six years.
It showed from April 2020 to March 2021 there were six cases of children under the age of 16 being ‘county line’ victims but it rose to 39 in 2025/26. In the same period the number of young people between the age of 16 and 17 who fell victim to drugs gangs rose from 16 to 65.
Cyber-attacks
Network Rail was hit with more than seven million cyber attacks in three months, data shows.
The government-owned rail infrastructure firm received some 7.1 million malicious emails between December 2025 and March this year.
The figure, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, comes days after two teen members of hacking group Scattered Spider were were in court for crippling Transport for London’s IT system.
Food recalls
Dozens of food recalls involving contamination with metal or plastic have taken place over the past two years.
The number of alerts shared by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) rose to 61 in 2025, up from 59 in 2024, with many issued by major supermarkets.
Of these, there were 29 recalls or withdrawals involving plastic and 32 of metal being found in products last year, the information released after a Freedom of Information Act request shows.
Stolen gold
Reported thefts of Asian gold have increased more than 2,000% across West Yorkshire over the last four years, police data shows.
A BBC Freedom of Information (FoI) request to West Yorkshire Police found £700,000 of valuables was reported stolen last year, with more than £500,000-worth taken so far in 2026.
Scaffolding spend
Taxpayers have spent more than £2m in the last 24 months fixing a Durham government building that is barely 10 years old.
Figures obtained by The Northern Echo through a Freedom of Information request show the Home Office has spent at least £1.38m on scaffolding alone at the Freeman’s Reach site in Durham city centre, where the UK’s largest passport office has operated since it was opened in September 2016.
The passport office was forced to close in October 2024 after strong winds caused a terracotta cladding panel to break free from the structure and crash through a skylight on the second floor, raising immediate safety concerns for staff and the public using the riverside footpath below.
Long mental health waits
The number of people waiting to access specialist psychological therapies in Wales is still rising, with the amount at its highest level since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Around 9,000 people with moderate to severe mental health conditions were waiting for therapies as of December 2025, according to statistics collated by Mind Cymru through Freedom of Information Requests made to all seven Local Health Boards.
And in the same month the total number waiting for more than 26 weeks – six and a half months – to access specialist psychological therapies reached more than 4,300. In each case, this is the highest set of monthly figures received by the charity over the space of six years.
School break-ins
Schools have been targeted in a string of break-ins and attempted burglaries.
New figures show that the Vale of Glamorgan saw 24 incidents between 2021 and 2025 as part of a wider trend across South Wales, where 221 incidents were reported across Cardiff, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Bridgend, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, and Merthyr Tydfil.
The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, covers educational institutions including schools, colleges, and universities.
Cancelled parking fines
More than 4,000 parking fines handed out over the past three years to drivers in Northern Ireland have had to be rescinded due to users putting in the wrong details when paying by app.
Released to The Irish News in response to a Freedom of Information request, the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) said that it receives “over 20,000 challenges” to Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) each year and that “each case is often unique”.
However, 4,051 fines which were handed out to drivers who had paid for parking via the JustPark app between May 2023 and May 2026 were ultimately cancelled.
Rising debt
Four-fifths of graduates have seen their student loan balance grow faster than they are repaying it, new data reveals.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed that the proportion of students who are seeing their debt increase despite making repayments rose from 76 per cent earlier this year to 82.6 per cent in May 2026.
More than seven million student loan balances had increased as of May while around 1.5 million had decreased, according to the FOI request by Compare the Market.
Dropped kerbs
Southampton City Council has been accused of behaving like a “bully” after threatening dozens of residents with £1,000 fines for parking outside their homes. The authority has been criticised for sending letters warning residents not to access driveways or front gardens where no dropped kerb is in place.
Despite repeated warnings, no fines have been issued by Southampton City Council in the past four years. Civic leaders follow a policy of issuing three warnings before pursuing financial penalties.
Figures obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service through a Freedom of Information request show 34 final warning letters were issued in 2025/26.
Unroadworthy
Figures released by the DVLA following a freedom of information request from the RAC’s mobile servicing and repairs division show 10,054 penalty point endorsements were issued to motorists in Great Britain in 2025 for driving unroadworthy vehicles – down from 13,109 in 2024, a fall of 3,055.
Defective tyres accounted for the majority of offences, with 6,670 drivers stopped and endorsed – an offence that can also carry a fine of up to £2,500 per tyre. A further 3,384 endorsements were issued for other roadworthiness faults, including defective brakes and steering. The offence carries three penalty points, which remain on a licence for four years.
Red light
Thousands of drivers have been caught running red lights across East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.
Data released by Humberside Police through a Freedom of Information request shows 3,558 offences for failing to stop at a red light across the force area between January 2023 and March 2026.
In 2023 there were 299 recorded offences, rising to 773 in 2024. That figure more than doubled to 2,004 in 2025, and in just the first three months of 2026, there were already 482 offences.
Homeschooling
East Lothian Council saw 58 young people registered for home schooling during the last school year with an additional 24 additional support needs (ASN) youngsters also learning at home.
The figure compared to just 13 children during the 2015/16 year when the number of ASN pupils at home was so low it was not made publicly available.
A recent FOI revealed that the number of ASN youngsters learning at home was too low to be made public, in case individuals were identified, right up until the second year of Covid in 2022/23 when it was confirmed the families of 11 pupils opted for home learning.
Image by Mukhtar Shuaib Mukhtar on Pexels
