Four weeks ago I asked all 25 municipalities in my Province for their spending data, as reported in so called IV3 files to the Dutch national statistics office. As all municipalities use the same format, this makes it possible to compare spending and budgets across communities, for instance as is done at openspending.nl
Because I asked 25 government bodies the same question at the same time, it also makes for interesting comparisons on how each of them deals with requests for information, and how that compares to the legal obligations in place in the Freedom of Information Act (WOB, FOIA).
Today is day 28, and that is the end of the initial period, stated in the law, government bodies have to respond to requests. So how did the 25 municipalities do?
As of today I have received 15 out of 25 requested data sets (60%). The shortest response time was 4 days, and the last week, as the deadline was approaching, saw most activity.
Just over half (14 out of 25, 56%) turn out to only accept FOIA requests on paper, and not through e-mail. This is an mostly unnecessary obstructive effort to reduce the number of citizen requests received, and especially to prevent overlooking requests and thus penalties.
Five municipalities have announced postponing their answer with (the legally defined) additional 4 weeks. Four have a few days of the first 4 weeks remaining (the days used for me responding on paper where the original e-mail wasn’t accepted). One municipality is now officially late.
All in all a pretty good result thusfar in my opinion.