One in five FoI requests turned down

Central government bodies refused nearly one in five Freedom of Information (FoI) Act requests received in the first three months the legislation was in force.

According to figures published by the Department of Constitutional Affairs, 13,400 requests for "non-routine" information were received by 43 central government bodies between January and March this year.

Departments of State reported receiving a total of around 7,700 non-routine FoI information requests during the quarter.

Last year the public sector had to scramble to get systems in place to deal with an expected flood of requests.

Eighty-two per cent of requests were processed in time, meaning there was a government response within the statutory deadline of 20 working days or the requests were subject to a permitted deadline extension.

Of the "resolvable" requests - where a "substantive" response was possible - 56 per cent were granted in full, 13 per cent were withheld in part, and 18 per cent were withheld in full. The remainder are still waiting for a response.

The Ministry of Defence received the highest number of requests for a government department at 1,843. Among government agencies, the Health and Safety Executive reported having received 2,085 requests and the National Archives reported 1,749.

Under the FoI Act, a public authority can only refuse to provide requested information that it holds if the request is considered vexatious or repeated, if the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit or if the information falls in one or more of the categories of exempt information.

Several hundred requests were blocked on grounds of national security and international relations but the single biggest reason for blocking requests was "formulation of government policy".