Freedom of Information (FOI) requests refused under Section 12 statistics: FOI release

Information requested

Could you supply the number of FOI requests wholly or partially refused under Section 12 of FOISA for financial years 2020/2021 to 2024/2025, broken down by year.

Response

The answer to your question is within the table below, the date range applied has been from cases completed from 1 April 2020 to 30 March 2025;

Financial Year	Number of Requests and Reviews where s12 was applied
2020/2021	182
2021/2022	201
2022/2023	189
2023/2024	248
2024/2025	302

To provide further clarity on the figures above: FOI requests have grown steadily since 2020. Between the calendar years 2020 and 2024, our request numbers rose by 65% (from 3.3k to 5.8k) and continue to increase. The numbers shown in the tables indicate that the proportion of cases where section 12 has been applied remains broadly the same; it is the overall volume of FOI requests that has risen.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.