COMPLIANCE with Freedom of Information legislation continues to be a drain on the resources of Scottish Borders Council.

In 2016, the council handled 1,241 Fo1 requests – up from the 1,069 received in the previous year.

The updated total was revealed at last week’s full council meeting – the last before the May 4 local elections – when Councillor Bill White (Galashiels and District) asked how much this was costing the local authority.

He was told by Councillor John Mitchell, SBC’s depute leader and finance spokesman, that the council did not currently record the full cost of handling the requests, responses for which are required by the legislation within 20 working days.

“FoI responses are co-ordinated by two officers who each spend approximately 75% of their time dealing with the enquiries,” said Councillor Mitchell. “The annual cost of these two posts is £43,468. 

“This does not, however, reflect the full cost of responding to FoI requests as extracting the requested information, obtaining legal advice and/or responding to requests for reviews also involves staff within other departments.”

In 2012 the Scottish Government estimated that the cost to public bodies in Scotland of dealing with the average FoI request was £231.

An extrapolation of that estimate indicates SBC could be spending around £280,000 a year complying with the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

At last week’s meeting, Councillor White suggested that while he did not want to increase the workload of officers, a sample of 10 FoI requests could be examined to provide elected members with an accurate indication of how much the legislation is actually costing the council.

Mr Mitchell said he believed this would be possible and he agreed to discuss its feasibility with council officers.

Meanwhile a breakdown of the 2015 FoI requests reveals that the most prolific seeker of information was the Edinburgh law firm of Millar & Bryce which made 50 requests.

Other notable requesters that year included the Scottish Daily Mail (15 requests), the Sunday Post (10) and an un-named private individual who invoked the legislation 12 times over the year.

The most persistent political information seeker was the Scottish Conservative MSP group at Holyrood which made 10 requests in 2015.