FOI Fest: Introduction
FOI Fest was a one-day conference that took place in London on 19th February, 2026. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be putting each session out as a separate podcast.
To start with, here is the introductory session with a welcome from Gavin Freeguard of the State of the Future thinktank, followed by words from John Edwards, the Information Commissioner.
This session can also be watched as a video, on YouTube.
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Transcript:
0:00 Gavin Freeguard Welcome to FOI Fest 2026, a one-day conference celebrating Freedom of Information’s 21st birthday, where we’ll discuss the achievements, challenges and future of FOI.
0:14 I’m Gavin Freeguard, Director of the new State of the Future thinktank, one of the people behind today’s event, and your moderator for some of the day.
0:22 It’s wonderful to see so many of you here in the room and online bring so many different perspectives on FOI. Show of hands and do put your hand up to whichever of these you think apply to you.
0:34 How many of you are regular FOI requesters? Quite a few. How many of you are more used to responding to FOIs as information rights practitioners? Again, we’ve got quite a few.
0:46 Campaigners? Journalists? Academics? Policy people? Central government…nobody admitting to that. One!
1:02 Local government? Regulators – definitely got a few of them in the room. Wider public sector?
1:10 Excellent: you’ll see that we’ve got a huge amount of diversity, but hopefully we’ve all got something in common. One last show of hands: who is interested in Freedom of Information?
1:22 Excellent. Did anyone NOT put their hand up there? Because you may have come to the wrong place!
1:27 “Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in governance and defective decision making. The perception of excessive secrecy has become a corrosive influence in the decline of public confidence in government.
1:40 “Moreover, the climate of public opinion has changed. People expect much greater openness and accountability from government than they used to.”
1:50 That’s the opening paragraph of “Your Right to Know”, the Blair government’s proposal for a Freedom of Information Act published in 1997.
1:58 The Lord Chancellor in that document described the legal right to information as being central to a mature democracy. The Prime Minister himself said that the traditional culture of secrecy will only be broken down by giving people that right a fundamental and vital change in the relationship between government and government, and that’s a far cry from Blair’s later reflection that he had been a “naive, foolish, irresponsible, nincompoop” for introducing FOI, “There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it.”
2:35 That’s Blair on FOI, by the way, not me on Blair’s view. Now this year, FOI comes of age, turning 21.
2:42 It’s 21 years since both the Freedom of Information Act and Freedom of Information Scotland Act came into effect. In that time, FOI has often made the news, quite literally, helping break countless stories. Several attempts to row back on it have been seen off.
2:58 Proposals to extend and improve it continue to be put forward, whether the Making Work Pay white paper, which references extending FOI to private companies with public contracts, or the very live discussions in the Scottish Parliament in recent months.
3:13 So how did we get here? How well is FOI currently working, and where do we want to go next?
3:21 Now, very shortly, I will introduce Warren to the stage for our morning keynote, but before that, we have a message from someone who can’t be here today, and that’s John Edwards, the Information Commissioner.
3:32 John Edwards Good morning. I’m John Edwards, the Information Commissioner. Thank you for inviting me to speak at the inaugural FOI Fest. It’s fantastic to see so many people with an interest in Freedom of Information gathered to share their knowledge and experience. I’m only sorry I can’t be with you in person.
3:38 Today, the Freedom of Information Act is vital to our democracy. Last year, we celebrated 20 years of this legislation, which has made public authorities more open and accountable to the people they serve.
4:08 But we also looked to the future, and both the opportunities and challenges for transparency as technology evolves. First, I want to be frank about some of the challenges we’re facing as the regulator.
4:24 So far, the number of complaints we receive is tracking a third up year on year. We expect to receive a record over 10,000 complaints by the end of this financial year. Some of you may remember the backlog of complaints we built up during the covid pandemic.
4:43 Our current caseload is even higher. This means it’s taking us far longer than we would like to allocate cases. But I can assure you that we are exploring how we can work more innovatively to rise to this challenge. And we continue to prioritise cases as quickly as we can, where appropriate, in line with our framework. I expect this will be a familiar challenge for many of you.
5:12 Our increase in complaints reflects an increase in FOI requests across the board at public authorities: we’re in the same boat, expected to do more with less and navigate this influx with resources that may be stretched to their limit.
5:28 It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why requests are increasing, but AI is adding a new complication. Parliament likely didn’t anticipate the use of generative AI chatbots when they passed the legislation in 2000 for example, we’ve heard of cases where an AI model has hallucinated information rights or decision notices that don’t exist.
5:52 We hope to soon publish some practical guidance for public authorities on navigating AI and applying the principles of the FOI act.
6:01 On the flip side, technology could also help us reach a solution. I’m pleased that my office has received extra funding from government to explore tech opportunities this year, while we await news on the longer term funding requested in the spending review we’re still figuring out what this looks like in practice, but automation is a good example.
6:28 If we can automate turning complaints into cases on our casework system, our staff will have more time to focus on providing timely responses. After all, it’s our job to ensure people’s rights are being upheld.
6:43 We also have a responsibility to support public authorities by providing certainty on the law as well as advice and guidance. Our upstream regulation team are always developing a new tool or resource for practitioners.
7:00 We’ve been sharing training via newsletters, webinars and self serve resources. We’ve also published case studies to help showcase best practice as well as practice recommendations and enforcement notices.
7:15 Let’s not forget that more FOI requests means more people are exercising their fundamental right to access information, and this is really positive. We will continue to hold public authorities to account and advocate for transparency as a priority.
7:35 My main takeaway for you today is one of collaboration. We’re all facing the challenge of increasing volumes that aren’t necessarily being met with more resources.
7:45 We know we need to work with the FOI community to tackle this issue. Whether you’re a requester, a practitioner or a public authority, you may need more support from us, and we’re figuring out the best way to deliver to deliver this. For now, watch this space. We’ll be sharing more information as soon as we can. Thank you for listening and enjoy the rest of the day.
8:10 Gavin Freeguard: Big thank you to John and the ICO for sending that through, and John in calling this the inaugural conference, apparently committing us to doing it every year. If anyone would like to help us out with that, we are definitely looking for funding options. So thank you in advance.