Transparency and FOI news

Freedom of Information in Local Government

How many FOI requests are received by local councils each year?

It's a figure that's previously been hard to pin down, but can be found in our recent research on how FOI functions in local government — and it may be more than you think!

There's plenty more of interest too, for anyone working within local government or involved in any aspect of FOI in the UK.

Alex shares an overview in a couple of posts, or find the full report here.

Could you be a translation superhero?

As we roll out improvements to the Freedom of Information sites across the world which run on our Alaveteli platform, we are in need of fluent volunteers to translate the small strings of text that go on webpages, from buttons to error messages.

If you speak fluent French, Spanish, German, or one of several other less common languages, you could do some good for the global FOI community — read more here.

FOI in Scotland: is it working?

Got something to add to the post-legislative scrutiny asking how effective the FOI Act has been in Scotland up until now?

If you have experience in using or helping maintain the Act in Scotland, tomorrow is the final day to submit your views (although we have it on good authority that the deadline is a little bit elastic).

And finally...

• Is the fracking commissioner's routine deletion of emails a ruthlessly efficient approach to office management, or a dereliction of duty?
• Radio: Ten years on, The Reunion on Radio 4 brought together key figures from the MPs' expenses scandal, including FOI investigative journalist Heather Brooke.
• The journalists behind the Sold From Under You investigation will be talking about the project at this London event on May 15.
• What is the future for AI in news? Mattia Peretti shares his journey as he takes on a new role as manager of the Journalism AI project at LSE.
• A study into cross-Europe journalistic collaboration sees several benefits to the approach.
• An unusual assessment of the Mueller Report: not of its content, but of its quality as a PDF.

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