Council says FOIP requests are costly
Posted Apr 27, 2015 7:24 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Is the City of Calgary being so secretive about its documents that the cost to respond to requests for information is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars?
Council will receive a report Monday, stating that from July to December 2014 the city spent more than $320,000 handling 197 Freedom of Information requests.
Some are calling to increase the $25 for the processing fee because it costs staff time to put together a response.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi tells City News, while sometimes you’re dealing with very sensitive documents, it doesn’t hurt to ask before filing a request.
“I’ve said this a lot, if you want to know something start out by asking because once you start filing a FOIP request extraordinary costs are incurred and most of the time we’ll just give you the information anyway,” Nenshi said.
The Provincial Freedom of Information Act requires most public bodies, including municipalities, to respond to requests from the public for internal documents and other information.
