F.O.I REQUESTS
What does it stand for? What even is an F.O.I Request? Let's get the jargon out of the way and make sense of it! F.O.I stands for Freedom on Information. As a member of the public you have the right to ask questions to your local Council and this can be about anything. This only applies to Public authorisites such as your local Council. Once you have submitted your F.O.I request they have a legal obligation to respond to your request. I would recommend sending a F.O.I when you have exhausted all means to get the information such as from online research, your local library or your local councillors.
The easiest way to submit a F.O.I request is via the online form on the Exeter City Council's website as per below:
The fom is fairly standard and once you have put your request the page will update and give you a F.O.I reference. This will be in the format of FS-Case-123456789. You will also receive an email and due to the nature of the content it may end up as spam or junk - so be wary of this. Officially they have 22 working days to respond. Don't expect to get all of the answers as in many cases the Exeter City Council don't have this due to poor record keeping. Also, if the processing time takes 'too' long they will not action the request. From my own personal experiecne it is better to send several smaller requests as you are more likely to get the information you want. So for example:
Question: May I please have a list of an up to date list of all of the trees that have been felled in parks and green spaces that are managed by the Exeter City Council.
Likely response: This will take too long so we can't provide this information.
Likely response: This will take too long so we can't provide this information.
Rephrased Question: May I please have an up to date list of all of the trees that have been felled in the St Thomas Pleasure grounds park which is managed by the Exeter City Council.
Likely response: Yes - here is a known list of the trees as requested
Likely response: Yes - here is a known list of the trees as requested
Please note the above is only an example. I would strongly advise that you keep any F.O.I request as simple and straight forward as possible. Think about the question(s) and if you feel it's a fairly big request then break it down into several smaller requests.
Below is a list of the F.O.I requests that I have submitted to the Exeter City Council. Please feel free to comment on the Blog.
F.O.I REQUESTS
01/01/2021 - Elm tree along Western Way. Case ref: FS-Case-290206579. Click here for the Blog.