More than 1,300 FOI requests made to council

According to data revealed by Powys County Council the authority has dealt with nearly 1,300 general information requests in the last year.

The council has tweeted that 1,292 Freedom of Information (FOI) and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) have been completed during the last 12 months.

It is not known how much the requests have cost the council in time.

The Local Democracy Service has looked at several of the information requests that have been submitted and completed.

Some have been put online at the Whatdotheyknow.com website so that everyone can look at them.

One of the big issues of the past year has been the Blue Badges and moves to charge for parking in council owned car parks were part of the discussion surrounding this year’s budget.

Eventually plans for charging Blue Badges were dropped.

The council was asked if it had the data on the misuse of Blue Badges within Powys for the last three years.

The Information Compliance Team answered:

Six cases pursued of DBB (Disabled Blue Badges) misuse by a third party and six people received and accepted a formal caution.

One badge was seized by PCC as it belonged to a dead person.

One live case that is being investigated and four cases referred to CEO (Civil Enforcement Officers) to keep an eye on referrals of misuse where vehicles and badge details known are allegedly being misused.

PCC said on Wednesday, 20 March, that they had seized a Blue Badge being used fraudulently by a family member while the entitled user was at home.