Dataset for "Freedom of information (FOI) as a data collection tool for social scientists."

The UK’s FOI Act came into force in 2005, allowing the public to make requests of publicly held data. We set out to understand the determinants of the quality responses to FOI requests. We also explain how requests can be made and provide suggestions to construct effective data-driven requests. We applied for data on hate crime from all police forces and on uptake of maternity leave from all universities. We find that observable characteristics of the local area, police force and universities neither determine whether the request was fulfilled, nor the speed of response, suggesting that the data from these FOI requests are representative of the institutions from which they were requested.

英国《信息自由法案》自2005年起生效，赋予公众请求公开持有数据的权利。本研究旨在探究影响公开信息请求（FOI）响应质量的决定因素，并对如何提出请求以及如何构建有效的数据驱动请求提供指导。我们向所有警方申请了仇恨犯罪数据，并从所有大学获取了产假接受情况数据。研究发现，当地区域、警方力量和大学的可观察特征并不能决定请求是否得到满足，亦不能决定响应速度，这表明这些公开信息请求的数据反映了所请求机构的特征。