FOI is essential at the local level

We saw this morning that Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council "has criticised Freedom of Information requests as burdensome ", stating that many requests are from "people looking for business, journalistic requests and other government departments".

At mySociety, we will always push back on attempts to erode access to information. FOI is an essential mechanism by which citizens can hold public authorities to account.

And you know what: business, journalistic and governmental requests? These sound like great uses of our rights to access information.

Councils are a critical part of our right to information

First of all, FOI at this level is key to enabling the public to be active citizens. It gives oversight to the parts of local life that people really care about, like planning, bins, tax, schools, parks and social care; it's often a way in to individuals feeling that they can understand, question and feed into their local democracy.

Want a prime example? Residents of Saltburn by the Sea requested information from this very council, Redcar and Cleveland, around plans for their promenade, alongside a successful campaign to have a say in unwanted alterations:

You can see these requests here:

• https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/alterations_to_the_promenade_at
• https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/proposed_alterations_to_the_uppe

And elsewhere, here's how residents in Haringey used FOI as part of a campaign to preserve council housing for local people . It's the same principle: councils are working for their residents, and as such, residents rightly have the power to scrutinise them.

Why journalists' requests?

Journalistic requests certainly should not be denigrated: in fact they are often crucial cogs in the accountability of local authorities. Here are some great examples of newspapers keeping the public informed over council spending.

We only have to flick back through mySociety's own blog to see that FOI was key to uncovering how councils were using public money for unfavourable loans : and meanwhile on LGC Plus we discover that without FOI we'd never know that Thurrock Council was keeping confidential how it "invested huge sums borrowed from 100s of other local authorities".

Why business FOI requests?

It's commonly argued that businesses 'abuse' FOI by habitually scanning for open contracts, etc: but we're not against that if the information isn't available elsewhere. It's a prime example of where better publication practices might free up time for local councils.

And anyway, business requests can be beneficial for society more widely - here's a fantastic example of just that , helping start-ups occupy empty premises.

Why governmental requests?

Government requests are often a sign that joined-up data is lacking, and could be rectified by better data sharing arrangements and proactive publication of commonly requested datasets.

And why does it matter who's requesting?

All this aside, it's written into the FOI Act that it is applicant-blind – all requests should be treated as equal.

The council should not be treating "people looking for business, journalistic requests and other government departments" any differently from other requests.

Hoping for better

We could go on, but we hope that's provided a good overview of why we'll push back on a council asking that "the government significantly revise the scope of the act to reduce the burden on councils."

In fact we hope to see central government honour their commitment to extend the scope of the FOI Act, so it applies to private companies holding contracts to provide public services, thus ensuring outsourced contracts are transparent and accountable for delivery.

mySociety runs WhatDoTheyKnow , the website that makes it simple to send FOI requests.

Image: Newcomen Terrace and Redcar seafront by?Malc McDonald , CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons