freedom of information some tales from the community journalism frontline darryl chamberlain...

Freedom of Information

Some tales from the community journalism frontline

Darryl Chamberlaindarrylchamberlain.co.uk @darryl1974

Here’s what I do….

853blog.com

Greenwich and neighbouringareas in south east London

Covering stories others don’t

Holding Greenwich Council and other bodies to account

Here’s what I do…

charltonchampion.co.uk

Community news and what’s happening in Charlton

Designed to be a neutral forumfor local news and views

Here’s what I do…

No to Silvertown Tunnel

Campaign against new roadcrossing of the Thames

New road would increasealready-horrifying levels of airpollution in south-east and east London

Other media in SE London

News Shopper (Newsquest)Based well outside local areaHas recently lost dedicated local reporters for Greenwich and LewishamDoesn’t use Freedom of Information to get stories


Mercury (Tindle Newspapers)Runs on a skeleton staff, based well outside local areaIs a free paper, yet copies are hard to findDoesn’t run any investigations


Greenwich Time (Greenwich Council)One of just two council weeklies left in EnglandGives a rosy glow on local council policies – week in, week outHardly likely to investigate itself

What is the FOI Act?

Why submit an FOI request?

• To find out figures

• To see how money is being spent

• To find views that’d otherwise be

kept secret

• To obtain documents

Who do I ask for information?

• Greenwich Council – my local council

• Neighbouring councils such as

Lewisham

• Transport for London – agency run by

elected mayor of London which runs

public transport and main roads.

FOI to find out figures


Who’s using this thing?

Emirates Air Line FOI• Asked for hourly breakdown over a

week

• Asked for sales of a wide range of

tickets

• Exercise has been repeated over

three years

• Story generated London and UK

coverage

Emirates Air Line FOI

Still short of passengers

Follow the money

Follow the money• Greenwich Council’s private mayor-

making celebration costs £20,000

• Invite lists reveal it’s used to

schmooze property developers and

reward chums

• Asking for wine list added colour to

story

Follow the money

Follow the money

Section 106 payments on new developments such as supermarkets – where do they go?

Follow the money

Follow the money• Local improvements promised by

developer and council had not

appeared in area around new

supermarket

• FOI found that £1.5m paid to council

had been spent elsewhere or was sat

unallocated

A quick word on Section 106• You won’t need FOI with some

councils…

A quick word on Section 106• …but you will with others

Before you put in an FOI request…

• Check the authority hasn’t already

published the information

• They can refuse to give you the

information if it’s already out there,

although they should point you to

where it is

Revealing disagreements

Greenwich’s cycling sulk

• Greenwich Council was only one of 32

London boroughs to refuse to deal with

the mayor’s cycling commissioner

• This was based on the council leader’s

personal dislike of the commissioner,

controversial journalist Andrew Gilligan

Greenwich’s cycling sulk

• I asked the Greater London Authority for

correspondence between Gilligan and

Greenwich Council

• Publishing the documents embarrassed the

council into reversing its position

• I also asked Greenwich Council for the same

correspondence, to check for discrepancies

Find out why projects fail

Find out why projects fail

• Greenwich Council had wanted to pedestrianise part of

historic Greenwich town centre – a major tourist hotspot

• Transport for London refused to fund this

• Asking for correspondence between Greenwich and TfL

revealed it was because TfL disapproved of creating a

large one-way system

• It also outlined the steps Greenwich took to try to

persuade them to hand over the cash.

FOI to get documents


• Council-commissioned study into possible

Docklands Light Railway extension – wasn’t

published on website, but obtained using FOI

• Council cabinet had backed spending money on a

follow-up report, but was unwilling to make it

public. FOI ensured it was made public


• I was working for MoneySavingExpert.com

and knew ESTAs didn’t cost that much

• I put an FOI request into the Greater

London Authority to get the receipt

• The FOI revealed his office had used a

dodgy copycat site to get his travel permit

Opening up consultations

• You can ask for all responses to

public consultations

• No to Silvertown Tunnel campaign

has several datasets from

consultations so responses can be

studied in far greater detail

Opening up consultations• Earlier this year, TfL started asking

people for their Blackwall Tunnel

horror stories

• So No to Silvertown Tunnel campaign

asked for all responses, and their

postcodes

Opening up consultations

FOI stories from elsewhere

• Lambeth’s ‘gentrification jolly’

• London’s creaking flyovers

• West Ham United and the Olympic

Stadium

Lambeth ‘gentrification jolly’

• BrixtonBuzz.com has carried many stories on the

gentrification of the south London area

• It’s frequently critical of Lambeth Council for

evicting council tenants so properties can be

redeveloped

• A 2014 FOI request revealed how property

developers funded council officers attending a

Cannes conference

Lambeth ‘gentrification jolly’

London’s creaking flyovers

• In 2012, BBC London used FOI to obtain a report

into the poor condition of Hammersmith Flyover – a

major traffic artery into the west of the capital

• It also asked for condition reports in all 36 TfL

flyovers, and found seven were in a “poor” or “very

poor” condition

• Two of those flyovers are in Greenwich – so I’ve put

in my own FOI requests for more up-to-date reports

London’s creaking flyovers

West Ham United and the Olympic Stadium


• West Ham United are due to move into the Olympic Stadium

from 2016/17 season

• Deal is being brokered by the London Legacy Development

Corporation, a public body

• Charlton Athletic Supporters’ Trust (CAST) obtained heavily-

redacted contract via FOI, which revealed taxpayers are

heavily subsidising West Ham’s move to the stadium

• Public money will be used to maintain the pitch, goalposts

and corner flags – the sort of things other clubs fund

themselves


• Charlton Athletic Supporters’ Trust now asking to

see full contract between West Ham and the LLDC

• LLDC refused, but CAST appealed to the

Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

• ICO ruled LLDC was wrong and full contract must

be released to CAST

• But LLDC is appealling against the ruling – so now

case will go to a first tier tribunal

When can requests be refused?

• They include personal data or could affect a firm’s commercial

interests

• They relate to decisions in the process of being made by a

public authority (“safe space”)

• They cost too much to investigate (£450-£600+)

• They are “vexatious”

• Information is already out there (or has already been obtained

by somebody else)

• Authorities have to weigh these exemptions up against the

public interest

Appealling can work

Appealling can work

• I’d been tipped off about a confidential report given to

Greenwich Labour councillors about the council’s

support for new road-building – a controversial topic

• Greenwich refused to release it, citing the “safe space”

exemption – it claimed it was still making its decision

• I gave the ICO enough evidence to show that

Greenwich’s refusal was wrong, including showing that

publication would be in the public interest

Appealling can work

Appealling can work

• Greenwich Council used a secret “viability assessment” to axe

social housing on a plot of land on the Thames next to the O2

• Local resident Shane Brownie used FOI to ask for the

assessment – and got it, after 18 months of appeals against

the council

• Greenwich is now proposing to publish more details of

viability assessments as a matter of course

• He worked with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the

BBC to get the story out there

Appealling can work

If your FOI request is refused…

• Ask for an internal review – should take 40

working days

• Then - appeal to the Information Commissioner’s

Office

• You (or the authority) can then take it to a first tier

tribunal in a courtroom

• Final stage is a second-tier tribunal – this is where

lawyers may be needed

WhatDoTheyKnow.com

WhatDoTheyKnow.com

• WhatDoTheyKnow.com will track your request for you

• It lets you follow and search for past and current

requests to any public authority in the UK

• It’s run by a charity – MySociety – which also runs other

democracy tools such as TheyWorkForYou.com and

WriteToThem.com

• All requests are public, so if you don’t want any rivals

to be watching your requests, ask privately instead

([email protected])

Using WhatDoTheyKnow.com

Some final thoughts on FOI• No two councils are the same – some are more open than

others

• Many of the best requests will come from tip-offs or digging

deeper into something you’ve spotted

• Have a good idea of what you expect to see – be as specific as

possible in your request

• Look out for local campaigners who are using FOI

• Watch for interesting FOI stories from other areas

• If you have a simple idea – just ask. You never know where it’ll

lead

Some final thoughts on FOI

Thanks for listening

darrylchamberlain.co.uk

@darryl1974

freedom of information some tales from the community journalism frontline darryl chamberlain...

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