Information requests cost Staffordshire Council £160k

Staffordshire County Council bosses said firms were using up public resources to obtain financial information about the authority.

In 2014 it cost the council £160,800 to process requests made under the Freedom of Information Act – £42,050 worth of officer time was allocated to dealing with probes categorised as 'commercial'.

Councillor Ian Parry, deputy leader for the council, said: "As a county council we are committed to being as open and transparent as possible and we always use our resources to make sure we give taxpayers good value for money.

"We do receive a high number of freedom of information requests, which can often take several hours of work to provide an answer to, and there is a substantial cost to the authority in terms of staff time.

"We can see that some questions are clearly seeking marketing information, which is fine, but this was not what FOI is for. Commercial organisations should also be transparent when gathering business information and are effectively using public resources to assist their commercial activities. We do try to make our information as accessible as possible and already publish a wide range of information on our website including details of meetings and financial information."

The largest cost last year was £88,950 spent on FOIs from the public, while it cost £23,800 answering media requests. A total of £2,750 was racked up in processing probes from politicians, as well as £1,950 from public bodies and £1,300 from voluntary groups.

The authority has asked people to visit the FOI section on its website to make sure it holds the information and details have not been published.