Dip in FOI requests to government bodies - DCA statistics

Dip in FOI requests to government bodies - DCA statistics

Government bodies received 7,700 Freedom of Information (FoI) requests between September and December last year, the lowest quarterly total since the law came into effect. Just under 4,000 requests were made to government departments and the other 3,750 requests were made to other "monitored bodies". Around 90 per cent of requests have been processed.

The 7,700 requests in the fourth quarter compares to 13,600 during the first quarter of 2005, 8,400 during the second and 8,100 during the third. "These figures suggest that there was a marked initial peak in request volumes during the first quarter of the FoI Act's implementation," the Department for Constitutional Affairs said in a statement.

Decline in FoI requests after initial excitement: And only two-thirds granted in full (Silicon.com, 7 April 2006)
See also: Freedom of Information statistics September-December 2005 (DCA website, 6 April 2006)