A Stormont minister sat on an innocuous Freedom of Information request for more than six months — despite repeated attempts by his officials to get him to comply with the law — before finally accepting their advice after the department found itself facing court proceedings.

The revelation — which comes due to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by a member of the public — is rare documentary proof of the reasons why so many Stormont departments repeatedly break the transparency law.

Reported by the News Letter. You can read the full story here. 

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.