THE FORMER head of Freedom of Information at Oxford City Council has said people should pay a small fee to make requests.

In an exclusive interview with the Oxford Mail, John Evans said he believed the main pressure which prompted the Government to review the Freedom of Information Act was not transparency but cost.

Mr Evans, who was Oxford’s head Freedom of Information officer from 2004 to 2008, said his council spent up to £70,000 a year running the service.

He said because requests are free to make, public authorities are at the mercy of “flippant” requests and people who spam hundreds of organisations at once.

That, he said, costs the taxpayer money for information which they may or may not want or need to know.

He said: “Many requests are from individuals who compile lists of every email address of each FOI department in the UK.

“If they send out a request to 200 organisations, and each one costs just £3 of officer time (most are well over that figure) then the net bill to the UK taxpayer is £6,000.”

As a solution he suggested that a small fee of about £5 or £10 would help balance the books for cash-strapped councils and deter “trivial or flippant” requests.

Mr Evans said he was completely in favour of the Act and said it was “vital” to maintain transparency of public services.

He contacted the Oxford Mail after we launched a campaign calling on a government commission reviewing the Act not to restrict its powers.

Our campaign has been backed by the Society of Editors, Oxford East MP Andrew Smith, Healthwatch Oxfordshire, the Campaign to Protect Rural England Oxfordshire branch, Oxford City Councillors and Unison, among others.

The commission’s public consultation on the Act ends tonight at midnight.

More than 41,400 people have signed a petition calling on the commission not to restrict the Act.

Sign online at change.org/p/matthew-hancock-mp-don-t-weaken-the-freedom-of-information-act.