More than half a million spent trying to block FOI requests

THE Government has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money blocking the release of information to the public, it has emerged.

In the past five years, six departments have spent more than £500,000 trying to block requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI).

The biggest spender was the Department of Health, which spent more than £100,000 on a single case to prevent the release of ministerial diaries.

Other Whitehall departments refused to disclose their spending on fighting decisions by the Information Commissioner’s Office, saying that calculating spending would cost too much.

The research by Opendemocracy led to calls for ministers “to stop using public money to hide from public scrutiny”.

A series of FOIS disclosed that, since 2016, six departments had spent at least £500,000 challenging decisions by the ICO that they should release information to the public.

This includes the Department of Health, which spent £129,000 trying to block the release of Jeremy Hunt’s diaries when he was the secretary of state. Eventually, a judge ruled they should be redacted and then handed over. The department, which has spent almost £300,000, has used £87,000 so far blocking the release of drafts of a policy document about childhood obesity.

The Department for Work and Pensions has started three appeals against the ICO since 2018, spending more than £80,000, and the Department for Education spent more than £52,000.

A government spokesman said: “When considering FOI requests we have to balance the need to make information available with our duty to protect sensitive information.”