The number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to Havering Council has increased by 65 per cent over the last three years.

The figures were revealed in response to a question from the Residents' Association at the last Full Council meeting.

The full information is as follows:

Number of FOI requests received

	No of Requests
2006	341
2007	419
2008	564

No FOI requests were declined, though a request can be refused if the information is exempt, will take over 18 hours to collate, or has previously been supplied to the requester and there is no substantial change to the information. The following requests have fallen into these categories

	Info subject to exemption (in part or in full)	Over 18 Hours	Repeated Request
2006	66	3	0
2007	77	3	5
2008	101	11	4

Requests can be refused where they are considered vexatious, however Havering has never refused a request on these grounds.

The actual cost of dealing with requests is not held. The Information Governance Team do, however, log the time they spend on each request and for each of the three years, the time spent is as follows:

	Total In Hours
2006	No info held – see below
2007	674 (July 2007 onwards)
2008	1,456

These figures are approximate and do not include the time spent on additional advice and assistance given to officers or requesters by the Team. They do not include the costs of training provided by the Team, or the cost of handling appeals and complaints. The figures are purely the administration of a request from receipt through to closure.

10.4.09