Freedom of Information

Members of the public submit more than half of requests

Some Leicester Cllrs choosing FOI rather than member queries

Less than a quarter of requests are from the media

Some councillors around Britain would have you believe that the Freedom of Information Act is a dodgy piece of legislation which has been hijacked by journalists and is rarely used by members of the public.

They say that the majority of requests made to local authorities are by media organisations digging dirt, while the members of the public it was aimed at aren’t as interested in using it.

Earlier this month communities secretary Eric Pickles poured cold water on the possibility of councils charging for Freedom of Information Requests after growing pressure from local authority chiefs.

Among them was Hampshire’s cabinet member for efficiency, Cllr Colin Davidovitz, who said:

“There’s no doubt that newspapers use the information they receive from FoIs to benefit a great deal, by putting it on their front page to sell more papers. They are benefiting from research we do on their behalf, at our expense. Why should taxpayers pay for newspapers to benefit?’

Recently I submitted an informal request (via the press office, rather than under FOI) for Leicester City Council’s disclosure log for a sample three-month period. It shows the reality of FOI requests.

Less than a quarter of requests in Leicester came from the media. That’s not just the Mercury, but BBC Leicester, community media groups, local television news programmes and websites. It also includes national FOI requests which cast their net across every council in the country.

It was most heartening to discover that 92 of the requests were recorded as from members of the public, however I suspect that the 18 also submitted via websites such as WhatDoTheyKnow.com are very likely to be from members of the public also. This would increase the figure to just over half of all requests.

Eight requests were submitted internally – which I presume means from councillors who choose this rather than informal member queries. Nine were from unions, 35 were from private companies, one was from an education establishment, one was a “parliamentary brief” and five were from pressure groups.

I want to make it clear that this isn’t an attempt to target the city council, I’m simply using their figures to shed new light on a national argument.

And to be fair, the city council has attempted to work with members of the media in the past, encouraging us to use press office mechanisms rather than the more costly FOI process.

Unfortunately, journalistic scepticism of council-approved responses across the UK means that some members of the press are reluctant to take up similar offers, preferring the formal legal route of FOI.

Luckily – these figures appear to show – we’re not as big a part of the problem as some councils in Britain would have you think.