FOI requests cost Whitehall £8.5m to resolve, says MoJ research

The total staff cost for dealing with freedom of information requests submitted to central government departments is approximately £8.5m, a costings exercise conducted for the post-legislative review of the Freedom of Information Act has estimated.

This is based on Ministry of Justice statistics that show a total of 45,958 FOI requests were submitted to Whitehall departments in the 12 months to September 2011. The average request cost was calculated at £184.

Researchers at IPSOS Mori gathered information during a survey week, beginning on 5 December 2011 for most organisations. The FOI requests received by participating bodies were tracked for six weeks and the amount of staff time spent compiling the responses was recorded in a log.

The researchers found that requests took an average of six hours and ten minutes to complete, with the average cost of staff time calculated at £30 per hour. This was higher than the £25 set out in regulations.

The average cost of an internal review was meanwhile calculated at £179, with an average hourly cost of £29.

For the public authorities from the wider public sector (described as ‘non-central public authorities’), the average cost of resolving an FOI request was £164. Requests took five hours and 21 minutes on average to resolve, at an average cost of £21 per hour.

The researchers suggested that Environmental Information Regulations requests cost significantly more to resolve. The average cost of responding was £308, with requests taking on average nine hours and 57 minutes to complete.

During the survey week, none of the requests submitted to central government departments exceeded the £600 cost limit for staff time.

Eleven per cent of the tracked requests were refused because to answer the request in full would have exceeded the limit. “However, if all staff activities involved in answering the requests could be counted towards the limit, then 4% of the requests would have been above the threshold,” the report said. For non-central public bodies, which are subject to a £450 cost limit, the figure was 10%.

An indicative analysis comparing this latest study with previous research carried out in 2006 suggested that the average staff cost of dealing with an FOI request submitted to central government departments was similar to the cost calculated in 2006.

“Therefore the aggregate cost has increased markedly as the volume of requests received has increased (central government departments received 34,000 requests in 2006),” the IPSOS Mori report said.

The study found that 39% of requests made to central government were granted in full.

The researchers had already carried out a small-case literature review to examine evidence relating to the delivery of FOIA and current gaps in knowledge. They have also conducted 22 interviews with FOI officials from a range of public authorities about their experiences of responding to requests.

The IPSOS Mori study can be downloaded here.