THE Darlington & Stockton Times has tested out the new Freedom of Information Act by requesting information from a local authority which previously kept it secret.

Richmondshire District Council responded well within the 20 working day deadline for such requests and confirmed that a controversial training weekend for 11 senior staff in 2002 had cost £7,700, including accommodation and meals.

Responding to the request from editor Malcolm Warne in two days, Harry Tabiner, the council's chief executive, said the authority had received more than 30 requests for information since the Act came into force at the beginning of the year. Most had been responded to, although permitted exemptions were applied in a handful of cases.

Mr Warne said he wished to test the strength of the Act. "I chose this particular item of information because, in 12 years as editor of the Darlington & Stockton Times, it was the only occasion that I thought the D&S was denied information by a local authority which I believed should have been in the public domain," he said.

The council was widely criticised for sending senior officers on a team-building weekend run by Adrenalin UK at the Aske estate, near Richmond, and refusing to reveal the cost to the public purse on the grounds of commercial sensitivity.

* See Leading article, page 20, and Letters, page 21.