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back to article Councils show true grit in the face of ... FOI requests

Local Councils may not be getting any cannier at ordering in salt to coat the roads during the current unprecedented cold spell – but they’re certainly getting a lot cleverer at covering their tracks when it comes to answering Freedom Of Information requests. Last year, it was the BBC that caught them unawares, using FOI to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re the cost

    A properly organisd dept wouldn't need to spend lots of time running around, all it needs is proper organisation and planning (and no super duper it system is needed) just an organised way of doing and rcording.

    But the people n power have no desire to be organised as this gets in the way "doing budiness"

    So the excuse of cost would be nonsense if things were properly organised.

    As a former auditor we woule send out requets to companies suppliers/customers for debtor/creditor info. Most would respond but you could guarantee that local/national government would respond saying they didn't have the records

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Bah, humbug

    Looking through logs of FoI requests they seem mainly to be used for fishing expeditions by lazy journalists/lobbyists, or nutcases on strange missions, or Machiavellian types who work for the organisation in question, all of whom could find out most of this information by other means. Whilst FoI provides a valuable service in releasing information which should be public but is wrongly being kept quiet, there must be a better way than this to achieve that. This is public money which could be put to useful ends being spent on biased, partial stupid articles written by private lobby groups whose conclusion is already known at the start of the enterprise.

    Please, let's talk about a better way to free information which people have a legitimate right to know. Perhaps all this open data stuff will be the answer: if the data is "born free" at the institutions then the lobbyists can start doing their own damn work.

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  3. VSL
    FAIL

    Tax Avoiders Alliance Up To Their Same Old Tricks Again

    Surprised that El Reg and Jane Fae Ozimek are republishing the diatribes from this far-right "think tank".

    Jane, public spending is an issue of genuine concern to us all, but can we have a follow-up article on who fronts the Tax Avoiders Alliance; who's really behind their "surveys" and FOI requests; and how much money they're siphoning-off themselves through their own dubious tax-planning activities - both personal and corporate .

    That really would make an interesting read.

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  4. David Gale

    Public Accounts Scrutiny Window

    If they won't publish under FOI, just ask to see the relevant accounts during the public scrutiny window. They're usually open for 14 days, with a requirement for the local authority to publish the start date date.

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