A Freedom of Information (FOI) request can be made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

This Act allows everyone, including members of the public and the press, to request information which is held by public authorities, such as councils, government, the NHS and police forces for example.

Public authorities are obliged to provide this information when requested, and are required to do so within 20 working days.

However, there are some instances where the information does not have to be provided.

If a public body decides the request is not in the public interest, they can decline to provide the information.

They can also decline if they feel the request is vexatious, or if the requester has already received the information from a previous request.

Also, if the cost of providing the information is too high. For central government departments, this limit is £600, while for all other public bodies the limit is £450.

The following request was sent to the council’s FOI team on behalf of the Plaid Cymru group:

“How much in terms of capital spend has been spent in each of following wards in Caerphilly County in last five financial years? Please detail the projects involved and the spend?

“I’ve narrowed down the request to a ward priority basis so would be grateful if you could provide the information requested below in the original FOI until the cost limit is reached.

“The ward order is 1. Penyrheol, Trecenydd and Energlyn, 2. Aber Valley, 3. Llanbradach, 4. Hengoed, 5. Ystrad Mynach, 6. St Cattwg, 7. St Martin’s.”

Caerphilly Council sent the following response to the Plaid group’s FOI request:

“We can confirm that the Council holds information falling within the description specified in your request, but we are refusing to supply this information under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

“We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £450 for local government, which is specified in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004. Therefore, we are refusing to supply this information under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

“In order to determine whether your request exceeds this limit, we must multiply an estimate of the time we expect to take to comply with your request by £25 per hour. If the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £450 (more than 18 hours), we can refuse your request. In making this calculation we are able to include the time taken to determine whether we hold the information and time taken to locate, retrieve and extract the information. The hourly rate of £25 per hour is set by the Fees Regulations and is not dependent on the seniority of the officer who carries out the work.

“Under the Freedom of Information Act, we a have a duty to provide advice and assistance to help you narrow, reform or refocus your request so that the cost of complying with it falls below the appropriate limit of £450.  Unfortunately, on this occasion, the ward level data is not separately held and would require the examination and extraction from over 70,500 transactions, therefore we are unable provide the detail requested without exceeding the appropriate fees limit. Over the last five financial years, there have been an average of 14,100 transactions per annum. The reduction of the number of wards requested would not impact upon the number of transactions to be examined.”