Council says AI behind increase in FOI requests

A council says AI is responsible for an increase in Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

Lincolnshire County Council received a total of 1,992 FOI requests in the 2025/26 financial year – an increase of 18.% compared with the previous year.

The authority, which has fallen below its target to respond to people, said the increase was partly down to a rise in AI-generated requests.

Andrew Hancy, head of business support at the council, said the authority was investigating whether AI could also be used to respond to them all.

Hancy said people were using AI a lot more.

"You can tell by the way complaints or requests are worded that they have used AI technology to be able to ask for that information," he said.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, at a scrutiny meeting on Thursday, councillors were told 83% of its responses were issued within the 20 working days timeframe, below its target of 85%.

Independent councillor Phil Dilks said FOIs had grown into a "massive issue".

"A few years ago, we'd just get a few a year – we're up to, I make it, 40 a week.

"That is a huge change and a huge demand on the organisation. Whether that's right or wrong or we should welcome it, I'm not sure."

A Freedom of Information or Environmental Information Regulations request can be made by anyone for recorded information held by the council.

The authority must consider each request and, where the information is held, disclose it unless a relevant exemption or exception applies.

Hancy said the council was considering how it could use AI itself to speed up the process of responding to requests.

"That is probably the biggest area that we're looking at and working with colleagues in IT at how we can implement that."

Hancy stressed that these responses would still be checked by a member of staff to ensure that they were accurate, if the authority decided to go ahead with it.

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