When Bureaucracy Breaks the Law: Probation’s Mishandling of a Simple FOI
On 21 July 2025 I submitted a straightforward Freedom of Information request to the North East Probation Service. It was misclassified as a Subject Access Request, redirected to the wrong portal, and then allowed to drift past the legal deadline. That is not an inconvenience. That is a breach.
What I asked for
I requested policies, agreements, and correspondence about referrals to The Recruitment Junction, along with safeguarding and oversight material. In short, the kind of information the public is entitled to see under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
What I received instead
I was told to use a Subject Access Request portal. An FOI is not a SAR. A SAR is for your own personal data under UK GDPR. An FOI is for public information held by a public body. Mixing them up is sloppy at best and obstructive at worst.
The statutory FOI deadline is 20 working days. The clock starts when a valid request is received. Administrative mistakes by the authority do not pause or reset that clock. The deadline has passed. The obligation remains.
Why this matters beyond my case
If a public body can stall an FOI by misrouting it, then transparency becomes optional. That is not how the law works. Deadlines exist for a reason, and accountability should not depend on persistence or luck.
“We use a portal” is not a legal defence. A valid written FOI must be accepted and processed in time. A portal can be convenient, it cannot be compulsory.
FOI vs SAR at a glance
| Feature | FOI | SAR |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Access public information held by authorities | Access your personal data |
| Law | Freedom of Information Act 2000 | UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 |
| Deadline | 20 working days | One calendar month |
| Form or portal required | No, a written request is valid | No, a written request is valid |
The pattern that concerns me
Key issues get answers. The most sensitive ones are ignored. Then a last minute meeting appears, with little context and minimal notice. In that light, the FOI mishandling does not look like a one off. It looks like a habit.
This is about more than paperwork
Transparency builds trust. When basic requests are misrouted or ignored, people stop believing that systems will treat them fairly. That is bad for the public and it is bad for the institutions that serve them.
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