Bedford Borough Council received 1,299 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests between April 2023 and March 2024, according to newly released figures.
But despite the volume, the council does not currently maintain a public FOI disclosure log and has not assessed whether publishing one might reduce the number of requests.
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Responding to a FOI request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), the council confirmed that it partially or fully refused 41 requests in the nine months from July 2023 to March 2024, and outright rejected four as duplicates.
In 22 other cases, the council said it did not hold the requested information.
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The council said records before July 2023 are incomplete due to a decentralised system in which departments managed their own requests and recorded data on spreadsheets. As a result, earlier data cannot be reliably retrieved.
From July 2023 onwards, exemptions under the FOI Act were applied as follows:
- Section 21 (Information accessible by other means): 26 times
- Section 40 (Personal data): eight times
- Section 12 (Exceeds cost limit): four times
- Section 43 (Commercial interests): two times
- Section 31 (Law enforcement): two times
- Section 14 (Vexatious requests): one time
- Section 30 (Investigations and proceedings): one time
The council said it conducts public interest tests for all qualified exemptions, with outcomes recorded on a case-by-case basis. It follows guidance published by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), rather than maintaining its own internal templates.
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Despite the volume of requests, Bedford Borough Council currently has no internal or public FOI disclosure log.
The council’s website states: “Bedford Borough Council is in the process of developing a new way of searching for FOIs and EIRs that we have previously answered.”
But in its FOI response, the council has made no formal commitment to publish a log, nor assessed whether such a tool could reduce duplicated requests.
While it does track repeat requesters internally, no further analysis of preventable requests has been conducted.
There were no internal discussions during the reporting period about how the “information not held” classification is defined or used, the council confirmed.
by John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
