Capital of Culture year costs taxpayer £68,000 in Freedom of Information requests

REQUESTS for data under the Freedom of Information Act cost Liverpool council more than £68,000 during Capital of Culture year.

Figures revealed to the Daily Post show the number of applications rocketed by almost 400% in 2008 compared to the previous year. They show that applications went up from 203 in 2007 to 889, at a cost of £71.77 per request.

Liberal leader Cllr Steve Radford said if the city ended its “culture of secrecy” and made more information freely available, the cost to the taxpayer of getting answers from public bodies would be reduced.

He was forced to invoke the Act to get information that he had helped to compile in the Stormbreak research project into homophobic hate crime.

Cllr Radford added: “It is not acceptable that people – not just journalists – but members of the public and their elected representatives are having to throw the law at this council in order to access information kept in their name and at their expense.”

City ethical governance executive member Cllr Paula Keaveney says it is one of her “political priorities” to sort the council’s Freedom of Information record out – which includes the fact that up to 20% of requests are not answered in the statutory 20-day period.

Along with Cllr Radford and other concerned members, Cllr Keaveney will be meeting with the national Information Commissioners’ office to look at ways to improve their response time.

Between 2007 and 2007, out of 1813 applications, 435 went unanswered in time – 23% of all received. But the city says they expect the workload to decrease following the end of the 2008 celebrations, which saw a flurry of enquiries owing to the city’s year in the spotlight.

A spokeswoman for the Campaign for Freedom of Information said: “I think some councils should be more open.

“Cultural change takes a long time, but I think we are moving in the right direction. But a great deal more information could be made public proactively without people having to resort to the Act.”

She added that the failure to respond within the legal deadline was concerning. “It is quite a lot to be missing the required deadline on. We are currently working to improve the ‘publication scheme’ to make sure that everything that can be published is.”