ICO urges public bodies to consider proactive publication after research into common themes of information requested by sector

The Information Commissioner’s Office has called on public bodies to consider the benefits of proactive disclosure, after analysing the common themes in the information asked for through the WhatDoTheyKnow (WDTK) website.

WDTK allows people to submit freedom of information and environmental information requests to public organisations.

The ICO and WDTK analysed a sample of more than 150,000 requests made during 2022.

In a blog on the ICO’s website, Aiden Clarkson, Senior Upstream Regulation Officer - FOI and Transparency, said: “Understanding what people are interested in can help FOI and EIR practitioners to consider whether proactive publication of this information would benefit their organisation and help to reduce information requests.”

The common themes for local government were:

  • Highways, roads and parking  
  • Bus lanes and bus services
  • Children, schools and care
  • Housing and planning
  • Contracts
  • Internal correspondence
  • Asbestos

For education, they were:

  • Admissions
  • Grades, scores and results 
  • Management and finances 
  • Economics, law, engineering, science and medicine courses.

The analysis also looked at the common themes of requests made to the health sector, central government, and the emergency services.

The ICO’s Clarkson said: “We appreciate that the roles and responsibilities of organisations vary and that not all public authorities in the same sector will hold the same types of information. Please use these themes as a guide.”

He added: “Understanding the public’s information needs can better equip public authorities to meet one of the challenges set out in the Information Commissioner’s recent open letter to senior leaders: ‘…look at what people are asking you about and actively publish it.’

“Proactive publication leads to greater transparency and could decrease the number of information requests you receive. Our case study on the London Borough of Camden’s business as usual responses shows the positive impact that greater accessibility to proactively published information can have on case-handling times.”