Scotland’s information commissioner sounds the alarm as workload spikes 83% and warns the SNP’s reform plan could jeopardise public‑right access.
On 5 November 2026, the Scottish Parliament’s standards committee heard a stark warning from the nation’s information commissioner. David Hamilton, who once served as a senior police officer during the creation of Police Scotland, told legislators that his department has been hit by an “unprecedented” surge in demand for Freedom of Information (FOI) data.
In just twelve months the workload has ballooned by 83 per cent, a rise that is already stretching staff thin, eroding holiday entitlements and forcing longer hours than those of many other civil servants.
Hamilton traced part of the increase to a heightened public awareness of FOI rights – awareness that has risen from 88 per cent to 93 per cent after high-profile cases involving the Scottish Government and NHS Fife.
The boom in artificial intelligence has also added a new dimension: while most AI-generated requests are filtered out quickly, a handful of applicants have submitted an extraordinary 600 separate FOI requests to organisations across the country, straining resources further.
Risks embedded in the SNP’s sweeping public-sector reforms
Finance Secretary John Swinney has outlined a massive restructuring agenda aimed at plugging a £5 billion deficit. His plan calls for a radical overhaul of local government and a dramatic reduction of mainland NHS boards from dozens to just two. Hamilton, however, cautioned that such rapid consolidation could generate a decade of “unintended consequences.” He recalled his experience with Police Scotland, noting that merging disparate forces into a single entity required a decade to establish a unified crime-record system. “When you take organisations with different records and then pull them together, it will take a decade to amalgamate it,” he warned, adding that the scale of the proposed reforms could multiply that challenge twenty-fold or more.
The commissioner emphasized the practical fallout for citizens: “People will be frustrated they can’t find things and they will hit cost exemptions faster. There are huge implications for people’s rights.” He also highlighted the potential for a “combined public-service information portal” – a dream solution that would let users search all public data in one place, avoiding the current practice of “data dumping” and the need to constantly question the authenticity of information.
Funding shortfall threatens the integrity of the FOI system
Hamilton’s alarm was amplified by a stark financial picture. The commission’s budget is described as “half of a 10,000th of a per cent of the consolidated budget,” yet it delivers a high value of rights protection. “The system will fail if we are not properly resourced,” he declared, stressing that without an uplift in the upcoming SNP budget the department’s ability to process requests could collapse. He warned that the erosion of service would directly impact the public’s right to information, a cornerstone of democratic accountability.
Balancing the urgency of the £5 billion fiscal gap with the need to preserve essential oversight mechanisms, Hamilton concluded that while he recognises the financial pressures, the cost of under-funding the FOI infrastructure would be far greater. “This is an area where we are making a big difference and making things better for people,” he said, urging lawmakers to consider the long-term consequences of cutting resources from a system that underpins transparency and citizens’ rights.
