I'm just not getting the hang of the Freedom of Information thing.

With Christmas and the new year coming and the prospect of a few difficult news-free days ahead, I thought I'd get ahead of the game.

So I asked our public bodies for some bits and bobs under the Freedom of Information Act.

Several weeks on and the answers are coming back and I'm not getting much information.

Harumph.

I asked the police to supply info they've published before - at least twice to my knowledge.

Namely, how many people in Leicestershire are currently involved in drug dealing and how many of these have what they call 'firearms markers' against their names on the police intelligence system?

They've told me in the past that this stuff is updated on the force intelligence system every four weeks.

I know "intelligence" is just that. It's not cast iron fact.

But it is indicative of where the city is going and, I think it might be of interest to the readers.

Very few people in Leicestershire can or want to lay their hands on a gun. Let's get that straight.

But let's also be very clear that we do have a number of armed criminals in this city and beyond.

Having said that, I was happy - yes really, I was happy - the other day to report that there was only one occasion last year where a shot was fired. But, I have also written about guns - the real thing, not replicas - being seized from crims - again, the real things, not replicas.

So, I am not chasing a 'Leicester's gun crime mayhem' story. I don't do that kind of thing, thank you very much.

This time they told me they weren't obliged to answer my question.

Their answer seemed to boil down to the idea that my story would be a tip-off to our armed criminals.

I wasn't asking for names and mobile numbers, just some stats.

A couple of days later the Foreign Office responded to another of my FOIA questions.

I admit, I ripped this one off from a former colleague.

A couple of years ago a Daily Mail trainee called Matt spent a few months with us.
He asked how many people from so-called rogue states had been barred from travelling to study at Leicestershire's three universities. National security and all that.

That Daily Mail lad got an answer. I got a knock-back.

If anything's going to feed a regional journalist's inferiority complex....

Another day, another refusal.

I asked the Ministry of Justice to list the contraband seized from inmates and visitors at Leicestershire's prisons. Drugs, phones and the like.

Big public interest argument in favour of us getting the goods, you might think.
"It would take too long", they said today.

Ho hum.

Maybe it's me. Do I draft my requests badly?

Or, should I be thinking the Freedom of Information Act isn't all it's cracked up to be?

There's a largely taxpayer-funded quango in the city which, days after its arrival, told us it was exempt from the FOIA. It's not their fault - and they do say they intend to "operate in a spirit of openness". But how many other public bodies are exempt?

The legislation allows me to appeal first to the bodies which turned me down and then to the independent information commissioner if I'm still unhappy.

Anyone with expertise in this area care to offer their thoughts?

UPDATE: just to be clear, what I was moaning about was the fact that the quango was exempt and when I said it declared itself exempt, what I meant was that it made a point of highlighting this fact almost as soon as it came into being.

This particular quango is jointly owned by two local authorities and that’s what makes it exempt – if it was owned by just one, it would be covered by the Act.

It still spends our money. How sensible is that?