Headteacher of Ixworth Middle School to "hand deliver" FOI response

As readers of this Blog will be aware I recently sent Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests to several schools and to Suffolk County Council about the proposed Ixworth and Stanton Free School.

As I documented earlier I had great difficulty getting Ixworth Middle School to acknowledge the request and they even admitted to me they had sought advice that told them they had no legal requirement to acknowledge it. It might have been somewhat quicker and cost less public money to hit "reply".

But this tale took a completely unexpected twist yesterday when the Headteacher emailed me and told me she would be "hand delivering" the information I had requested to my home address and asked when I would be in to receive it!

At best this seems a complete waste of public money. Even if the Head doesn't claim mileage there are surely better things she could do with her time than deliver information that could be emailed or posted. By definition the response to an FOI cannot be confidential so I cannot see a good reason to deliver it by hand. I suppose you could even see it as intimidation.

In any case the Information Commissioner has issued guidance on "means of communication" and these state that information should be where possible be sent in the way the applicant requests them and I asked for the information to be emailed to me. This saves time and (public) money.