“The first response is not to record information at all.” This is what was claimed when Vox Political tried to get an update on the DWP’s infamous Incapacity Benefits: Deaths of recipients last year. In fact, as a later email from the DWP representative confirmed, the department not only keeps that information – it keeps it up-to-date in a formate that means it could be provided to anyone who desires it, at practically no cost! “Alternately they just don’t to hold it centrally, as in the MoJ’s refusal to collate incidence reports from prisons about contraband. They can then cite an S12 cost of compliance exemption, saying it would cost more than £600 to collect the data.”
— How Whitehall neutered the Freedom of Information Act – Ian Dunt, politics.co.uk | Vox Political