CAMPAIGN FOR FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

📣FOI handling across government (2025): improved timeliness amid record volumes. Key findings A total of 94,526 FOI requests were received across central govt bodies in 2025, the highest level since reporting began in 2005, and a 14% increase on 2024. Analysts attribute the increase partly to AI-generated submissions that may be inflating complaint volumes, as well as heightened public demand for accountability.  The Home Office saw the largest increase in volume (+2,382 requests), followed by the Department for Work and Pensions (+1,118).  Both departments are responsible for highly contentious portfolios, where an increase in request volumes might be expected. Overall timeliness improved from 76% to 87%. https://lnkd.in/eJsw2AgU).

Please support the CFoIS Manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections to secure transparency by design across public services. #freedomofinformation #accesstoinformation #foi #scotland #election

In yet another attack on the public right to know, the Judicial Appointments Commission is seeking costs from a journalist who had the temerity to force it to respond to an FOI ruling he says it was not complying with by seeking court enforcement action. If successful this claim will have a chilling effect on reporting. It would incentivise public bodies forced to make disclosure by the information tribunal to game the system by not fully complying, and forcing requesters to attempt expensive enforcement action. https://lnkd.in/eaVQnnvR

Freedom of Information (FOI) is about openness and transparency, but some information, if released, can increase the risk of cyber‑attack. Our guidance explains how to approach requests that touch on IT systems, security arrangements or past incidents. In some cases, giving specific technical detail can expose weaknesses or make it easier to target public services. Even small details can become a risk when combined with information already in the public domain. For example, when the Department for Work and Pensions received an FOI request about staff access to the Universal Credit system, it disclosed high‑level information but withheld detailed access privileges. Releasing that level of detail would have mapped out how the system worked and could have helped attackers target specific roles through phishing. That doesn’t mean withholding everything. Disclosure can also reassure the public about how systems are protected and how personal data is kept safe. Our guidance uses real public sector cases like this to show how FOI exemptions can apply in practice, and how to balance openness with cyber risk. Read the FOI and cyber security guidance: https://lnkd.in/e_KPQ7Hd

A quick FOI success story - small news outlet the Leicester Gazette has successfully obtained a (redacted) version of the local police force’s contract with Palantir after the Commissioner sided with them. Crucially, they’ve published the disclosed contract as a download, a very positive step that more journalists should take. https://lnkd.in/e3WECDTr

The government is still pondering crippling the FOI act parliamentary questions suggest My latest blog at Relight My FOIA, on the government's refusal to put to bed speculation it still plans to kneecap the Freedom of Information Act in response to PQs https://lnkd.in/eBW4HEiP

Our Democracy Lead Alex Parsons has been thinking about the increased demand on public systems created by #AI - not just #FOI but across the board for all areas where the public interface with government, be it planning complaints, grant applications or pothole reports. Here's a suggestion for an approach that doesn't reduce systems to a zero-sum game, and can work for the public benefit: https://lnkd.in/enmzC-7z

Would the act of confirming or denying whether Boris Johnson sought legal advice on the lawfulness of his Covid-19 lockdown declaration of 23 March 2020 in itself consist of disclosure of legally privileged information? “Yes”, said the Cabinet Office, in response to a Freedom of Information request. “No”, said the Information Commissioner's Office: “the Cabinet Office could confirm that it had sought legal advice (if it had in fact done so) without indicating whether that advice had concluded that the proposed action was or was not lawful. Therefore the Cabinet Office could confirm or deny that it had sought legal advice without revealing the substance of any advice provided and thus without revealing any information which would be covered by legal privilege”. “No”, also said the First-tier tribunal: “confirmation that information is held and that the Prime Minister had sought advice would not disclose the substance of what advice was sought. Nor would it reveal whether any advice was given in response, still less what that advice was”. “Yes”, now says the Upper Tribunal: the FTT (and the ICO) took too restrictive an approach to the concept of legal advice privilege: “Taking due account of the need to construe the protection afforded by legal advice privilege broadly, in my judgement to confirm whether the Prime Minister made a request for advice about the lawfulness of the lockdown announced on 23 March 2020 would to an extent reveal privileged information. The request was about the legality of the measures imposed by the lockdown of 23 March 2020. In other words, whether those particular measures (e.g., requiring people to stay at home or in wherever they were living on 23 March 2020, subject to certain exceptions) fell within the Government’s legal powers. Asking that particular question about the lawfulness of those particular measures was part of confidential communications between the Prime Minister and his lawyers on that issue, and to an extent would have revealed or given a clue as to the what [sic] the advice was about, namely whether the lockdown measures were lawfully authorised”. Notable that the judge decides in his judgment that one of core textbooks - Passmore on Privilege - is wrong in stating, as a general principle, that “References to the obtaining of legal advice on a given subject matter are not privileged”. The Cabinet Office v 1) The Information Commissioner 2) Daryl Peagram: [2026] UKUT 140 (AAC) https://lnkd.in/ePPqFCWt

⚖️CFOI is supporting a proposed judicial review of the government’s failure to publish environmental information proactively.” The action is being brought by environmental campaigner Ben Webster, a former Environment Editor of The Times.” It follows his two-year campaign to secure government reports on the possible use of hydrogen for home heating. The Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) require public authorities to publish the facts and analysis which they consider “relevant and important in framing major environmental policies’.” Webster believes the government is failing to comply with this duty under EIR regulation 4(4)(b). He asked the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what material they had considered publishing under this duty over a nearly two-year period. They could not identify any. This is a vital case for the integrity of the EIR regime. Please consider supporting his crowdfunder below. Donation link here - https://lnkd.in/eaktbwus https://lnkd.in/eUHpgQEq