A regional daily editor has rejected a council chief’s claims that journalists use FoI requests to “create trouble” for local authorities.

Keith Harrison, of the Express & Star, Wolverhampton, told HTFP he was “surprised” by the comments from Wolverhampton City Council managing director Keith Ireland.

As reported by HTFP last week, Mr Ireland claimed that the FoI act was not being used for the reasons it was originally intended.

His comments, during a meeting of the council’s scrutiny board, came just days after Cabinet minister Chris Grayling told MPs that journalists were “misusing” FoI to “create stories.”

Said Keith: “We have a great relationship with the council and Keith in particular, who I meet up with regularly, so I’m surprised by his comments.

“While we keep the council busy, the majority of requests do not appear to come from the local media.  We’re certainly not out to create trouble for the council, we merely report the facts they give us.

“In my view, the Freedom of Information Act is absolutely vital, not just in terms of the stories it helps to produce, but also as a useful way of scrutinising public bodies.

“It may be an irritant to those in senior public positions at times, but on a wider scale, it plays an important part in transparency and the open society that I am sure we all want.”

Mr Ireland had claimed at the meeting “the vast majority” of requests received by the council came from media organisations, as well as “lazy” students.

However a report revealed that of the 272 FoI requests received by the council between April and June this year, only 59 had been made by media organisations.

Last month the Society of Editors launched its Hands Off FoI campaign with the backing of HoldtheFrontPage and Press Gazette, founded after the Government appointed a Commission made up mainly of opponents of FoI to look at watering-down the legislation.

The deadline for submissions to the Commission is this Friday.