However, it adds that a pilot scheme is under way to estimate and record the full cost of each request as part of work to ‘streamline’ the process.
A recent freedom of information submission asked what the monetary cost had been in terms of officer time and other resources to process a request in the past year. It also asked for the requests to be broken down into the number filed by the media, individuals and repeat individuals and the costs involved in compiling those responses.
However, a response to the request says: ‘From 1 October 2018 a pilot scheme is being run to estimate and record the full cost of each freedom of information request, including central processing, time spent in departments obtaining and considering requested information and drafting responses.
‘This is part of work to streamline the processing of FoIs to improve consistency, speed of response and management information.
‘Full cost information is currently not held pending the results of the work detailed above. The information will be published once available.’
The response states that media requests account for 22 per cent of submissions, while individuals and repeat individuals account for 38 per cent and 29 per cent respectively. Meanwhile, seven per cent come from businesses and four per cent are from charities and lobby groups.
