King’s College London has failed to respond to a request to provide a tranche of documents for over 107 working days – despite being legally required to issue a response within 20.
In November 2025, Roar made a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to King’s to request documents from one of its committees. It confirmed it had received the request, as it is legally obligated to do, but has still not provided the information.
The Freedom of Information Act gives the right for any member of the public to make a request to a public authority, to which they are in almost all cases required to respond within 20 working days.
At the time of publication, King’s has now taken a total of 154 days (107 working days) and has failed to produce any documents, instead repeatedly delaying the request blaming vague difficulties.
‘We do not tolerate threatening or intimidating behaviour’
After missing the initial deadline of 11 December, Roar had to send three follow-up emails to King’s before receiving a reply two weeks later which blamed staff shortages and “reduced availability” over the Christmas break.
They also suggested that the tone of the follow-ups may have been “threatening” towards staff after Roar indicated their intention to make a formal complaint given King’s lack of response.
Multiple Roar journalists have been similarly accused of “threatening behaviour” after telling King’s they intend to exercise their legal right to complain – despite King’s being overdue on their requests.
In one instance, they threatened to “reject further requests” from a Roar journalist after they delayed his request:
“After the initial shock wore off I actually laughed at the irony of the hostile tone in their email”, he said. “From how standard my follow-up email sounded and my decision to wait an extra five days, ‘threatening’ would not have been the word I would have used”.
A King’s spokesperson told Roar that they “have reviewed the correspondence to Roar and concluded the response was not in line with our standard procedure and was inappropriate, and we apologise.”
King’s information compliance team threatened to stop replying to a Roar journalist’s requests after he said he would file a formal complaint if there was no response. Photo: Supplied
‘There will be further delays’
King’s had still not responded eight days into the new year after further delaying Roar‘s original request, again blaming staffing issues. It took two more follow-ups for them acknowledge the delays:
“While we appreciate your interest in receiving an update, frequent follow-up emails do not enable us to expedite the work.”
Email to Roar from King’s Information Compliance team, 29 January 2026
After an additional prompt on 16 February, King’s apologised for still not providing the information – yet did not actually state what the issue holding up the request was.
They did state, however, that “there will be further delays before we are able to provide a full response” to the request, almost 100 days since it had been made the year before.
Since then, King’s have not responded to Roar‘s requests for updates; it has now reached almost five times the legal deadline for responding to the request.
A King’s spokesperson said: “We have seen a significant increase in Freedom of Information requests in recent years, as well as an increase in subject access requests, and we are working at pace to resolve the issue. An improvement plan is in place to tackle the backlog and meet increased volume”.
Missing Data
Government regulations require King’s to publish quarterly data on how well it is responding to freedom of information requests.
Despite this, King’s has not published its performance data since mid-2024, despite stating on its website that it “complies” with the requirements.
King’s have not provided an explanation for failing to publish this data, despite repeated requests from Roar.
Roar is aware of multiple other requests that have been delayed beyond the statutory timeframe. At least one further request, on the Champion Hill halls of residence, still remains outstanding.
The Freedom of Information Act offers only limited reasons to delay a response, such as when considering the “public interest” in refusing a request. Roar has seen no evidence that King’s has used this right.
This article was updated at 4pm on 16 April 2026 to include a comment from King’s College London.
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