Chronically distrusted Met Police inundated with FOI requests

Met Police

London’s controversial Metropolitan Police force is apparently inundated with a “significant volume” of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. Public trust in the Met regularly ranks as very low.

An automated response, seen by the Canary, to one journalist’s FOI request reveals that the Met is unable to handle the number of inquiries it receives. FOI requests are made by the press and public alike.

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), public bodies and government organisations are legally bound to transparency access. The FOIA stipulates a 20-day timeframe for bodies to respond within.

The automated response, shared with the Canary by freelance journalist Georgina Garness, reads:

The MPS is currently experiencing a significant volume of Freedom of Information requests and, as a result of competing operational demands, we have unfortunately been unable to respond within the statutory timeframe.

This reply drags up a number of questions, which the Canary has raised with the Met. It suggests that an ever-greater number of individuals and organisations like charities or the press want to know more about the force’s internal processes, data retention, oversight procedures, etc.

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Low trust, low transparency policing

Trust in policing in England is remarkably low overall. Only around 40% of respondents surveyed in 2024 admitted that they actually trust their local police force. The 2023 Casey report offered grave clues as to why.

This number drops sharply among people of colour. The 2024 poll of some 8,000 people found a “race gap” where 42.6% of white Brits trust the police compared with just 32.1% of other ethnic groups.

However, the Met Police scores lowest for public trust. This was particularly stark for women, especially in the wake of Wayne Couzens’ notorious abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard in 2021.

Overall, less than 35% of Londoners trust the Met, which is the UK’s largest policing force. A separate 2024 report concluded that the Met’s reputational challenges are “monumental”.

An academic who led the 2024 study, Steve Pickering of the University of Amsterdam, said:

It looks like policing has lost legitimacy … it has been undermined by a succession of high-profile scandals.

These findings are all supported by the earlier Casey report. Per Guardian reporting at the time, the report found that:

The Metropolitan police is broken and rotten, suffering collapsing public trust and is guilty of institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia.

Casey herself concluded in the report that:

The Met has yet to free itself of institutional racism. Public consent is broken. The Met has become unanchored from the Peelian principle of policing by consent set out when it was established.

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Urgent questions for the Met Police

The Canary raised these points to the Met’s press office, in relation to their automated FOI reply.

(Their initial response was to stall my request for comment and question whether I am actually Canary staff — yes, I am. It seems that the public-policing relationship is remarkably low trust in both directions…)

After explaining my story and findings about low trust in the Met police especially, we asked:

Whether the volume of FOI requests they have at the moment is a record number. And details.
Does the Met keep data on its average timeframe is for returning FOIs? If so, what is the average?
Roughly how long this automatic response regarding FOIs has been scheduled for.
Why, if the response has been running for a while, do you not hire more staff to address so many FOI requests within the 20-day statutory framework set by the FOI Act 2000? Is transparency and swift accountability not considered a priority? If not, why?
Are too many Met Police resources – or “operational demands” – being expended on policing peaceful protestors en-masse instead? What proportion of policing resources is spent on protests, comparative to actual crimes or FOIA-related desk work?
How does the Met Police schedule and prioritise its “competing operational demands” in a way that benefits the public good? Who makes the decision that arresting pensioners, frail or disabled protestors is more socially valuable or urgent than FOIA transparency?
What do you think it says about the Met Police that so many people are eager to wrestle greater transparency from the force? What more is being done to win public trust in the police?

The Met did not respond to some of the more fundamental questions we raised to them about policing priorities. They also evaded our points about trust among certain communities – women and people of colour – and plucked a figure without source. One Met Police spokesperson told the Canary:

The Met is the UK’s largest police force, serving almost nine million residents and millions of visitors a year. There is a high-demand for our services, including Freedom of Information.

We are committed to improving transparency and building people’s faith in the Met. Public confidence in the force is rising; 74 per cent of Londoners trust the Met.

We always strive to meet statutory FOI deadlines. However, due to the large volume of requests we receive, some cases do exceed the limit.

We responded to over 7,000 FOI requests last year, up from around 5,000 in 2022, and continue to receive a large number of requests. In 2025, we responded to around 70 per cent of FOI requests within the statutory deadline.

We work closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office both regarding our overall performance and our service to those who apply for information.