Press Offices and abusing FOI
Across the country thousands of press officers for local councils, education authorities, NHS trusts and Government departments have pretty much given up answering all but the most simple requests, insisting instead that the journalist submits a Freedom of Information request.
Fleet Street Blues highlights the abuse of FOI requests by press offices as a way of avoiding or delaying the release of information to journalists.
My experiences have been mixed. Some POs pretty much treat any queries, sometimes the most basic of statistics, as FOI requests, making my life 20 working days longer than it should be. Other times they take the piss by using the full 20 days to tell me that they don’t hold the information.
However, I also have good times with POs, where they’re quick, succinct and co-operative. But, to be honest, it’s mostly the former.
