What I’ve learnt about making FOI requests to Councils in Wales

Every time I read Freedom Of Information I think of Mel Gibson in Braveheart saying “Freeduuuum”

Freedom of what?

We at The Satori Lab are carrying out a project looking into the current usage of British council websites.

It involves collecting council website data (e.g. page views or devices used when visiting).

The data we’re collecting is not public, it is held by local authorities. It is probably not exempt under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) so councils have to provide it if they’re asked.

Simply put, if we want to see this data we’ll need to put together a freedom of information request.

Never before had I asked for data like this. I didn’t really know where to start.

So I wrote this blog to explain the things I’ve learnt when making Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to councils in Wales.

It might help you better understand it if you’ve never made one before.

Council data

Local councils collect lots of datasets.

They do this to gain an understanding of how residents live and use services and because they are required to do so by law (or as a by product of other requirements).

Lots of the datasets end up being openly shared in the public domain so that anyone can view and use them. However, due to a number of issues such as:

• the number of datasets collected
• data protection issues
• technical barriers
• lethargy

It is not always possible for councils to open up all of their collected data. So much of it ends up sitting in databases never to see the public light of day.

This is where the Freedom of Information (FOI) request comes in.

Any FOI request made in writing must be dealt in accordance with the FOI act. This means that if the council judges the information being requested is not exempt from the rules — it must provide the data.

One important thing to note. Councils who publish open data are less troubled by the FOIA because they are exempt from responding to data requests if they have already made the data publicly available (another reason why open data rules).

Remember, councils have a duty to provide you with non-exempt information. So it’s important you know how to gain access to it even when they don’t make it available.

Become a master of FOI

For those who are new to this sort of thing a freedom of information request sounds quite complicated.

Here are 6 initial steps you can take to make that journey a little easier:

1. First, identify what data you’re looking for. Your request must not infringe on any data laws like personal privacy otherwise there’s a chance the request will be rejected. Also the work to prepare the data on the councils end must not exceed £450 otherwise you’ll have to pay for it.
2. Once you have an idea of what you want to find out I suggest you take a look at the ICO’s guidance on what requests can be refused before you proceed any further.
3. Next, find out who to contact in order to request the data. Public organisations in Wales are complex and finding the right person can be difficult. Use this directory to find out who to contact.
4. Alternatively, you could use the ‘WhatDoTheyKnow’ service which will assist you in requesting information. It will also publish the dataset online so others can access it too.
5. Once you’ve sent your request you’ll receive a response which will explain when they’ll get back to you. The council has 20 days from the point of acknowledgement to respond unless the information is exempt or they require additional time to consider whether disclosure is in the public interest.
6. If the request is accepted and carried out. When the data is returned you’ll need to check it is labelled under an Open Government Licence if you want to re-use or share it. Here’s a quick explanation:

• If the information being requested constitutes a “dataset” a council must respond with the data in a format that facilitates re-use: a description that covers both format and licence.
• If it does not constitute a dataset then the council can apply any licence restriction it requires.
• Also the council can’t relieve licences that applied to any upstream data.

This is by no means the end of your FOI journey but it should help you to get a foothold.

As we make progress collecting council website data I’ll no doubt encounter more obstacles. I’ll document those in the next blog.

Thanks for reading.

I work at The Satori Lab.

You might be interested to read our blog about the first things we look at on Google analytics or perhaps what data analytics services we offer.

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