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.
The dataset and code contains the analysis of "Freedom of information (FOI) as a data collection tool for social scientists" which evaluates a method of generating a unique dataset that has been underused - a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
Cite this dataset as:
Clifton-Sprigg, J.,
James, J.,
Vujic, S.,
2020.
Dataset for "Freedom of information (FOI) as a data collection tool for social scientists.".
Bath: University of Bath Research Data Archive.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-00763.
Export
Data
PF_Final.dta
application/octet-stream (118kB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Data for the analysis of Freedom of Information requests made to Police Forces
Unis_FinalData.dta
application/octet-stream (152kB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Data for the analysis of Freedom of Information requests made to Universities
Code
FOI_analysis.do
text/plain (15kB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Code for the analysis of Freedom of Information requests made to both Police Forces and Universities
FOI_vars.do
text/plain (4kB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Code to make variables for the analysis of Freedom of Information requests made to both Police Forces and Universities
Creators
Joanna Clifton-Sprigg
University of Bath
Jonathan James
University of Bath
Suncica Vujic
University of Antwerp
Contributors
University of Bath
Rights Holder
Coverage
Geographical coverage:
UK
Documentation
Data collection method:
Data was collected using i) Freedom of Information requests, ii) downloaded from government websites: police force characteristics and crime statistics - Home Office; local area demographic characteristics - 2011 Census; labour market characteristics - ONS.
Technical details and requirements:
The data and code files are in Stata format. Microsoft Excel was also used to prepare the data.
Documentation Files
Readme_file … FOI_PLOSONE.docx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document (12kB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Funders
Self-funded
Publication details
Publication date: 27 January 2020
by: University of Bath
Version: 1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-00763
URL for this record: https://researchdata.bath.ac.uk/id/eprint/763
Related papers and books
Clifton-Sprigg, J., James, J., and Vujić, S., 2020. Freedom of Information (FOI) as a data collection tool for social scientists. PLOS ONE, 15(2), e0228392. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228392.
Contact information
Please contact the Research Data Service in the first instance for all matters concerning this item.
Contact person: Jonathan James
Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
Economics
