Network Rail only became covered by the FOI Act in April this year but it is narrowly missing its targets for responding to FOI requests on time, newly published stats show. 

The rail body has responded to 83% of FOI requests it has received within 20 working days, a figure just below its 85% target.

It’s certainly not a bad performance from an authority that has just fallen under FOI 10 years after other public authorities and has created a brand new team to handle requests. If anything Network Rail is performing a lot better than other authorities that have more experience of the Act.

In the year-to-date the organisation has had 587 FOI requests made to it, of these 37% of these have seen the information provided in full.

The numbers were included in the organisation’s transparency data. 

There’s absolutely no obligation for public authorities to publish how they’re doing in responding to FOI requests and the authority should be praised for how open its being about its FOI performance.

The stats are below:

 

Matthew Burgess
http://www.mattburgess.co
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.