Dutch government ministries have made no progress in processing requests for information under freedom of information legislation (Woo), an analysis by the Open State Foundation, the social innovation institute IMI and the University of Amsterdam has shown.

Journalists and other citizens requesting government information were kept waiting an average 188 days last year, compared to 172 in 2023, the report – called Turtle Soup – revealed. The legal maximum waiting time is 42 days.

In 2023 just 17% of requests were processed in that time, and that number has remained the same, the researchers found.

The education minister was the quickest with an average of 99 days while the justice ministry took the longest with 299. The number of requests grew from 1,762 in 2023 to over 2,000 in the last year.

The IMI said there is no reason why requests could not be processed more quickly given that the provincial authorities take an average of 83 days to answer questions, and the water boards take 61.

A quick scan of local councils show they take an average 61 days although only Amstelveen and Barneveld managed to stay within the legal limit. Amsterdam, however, has shortened its response time from 137 days to 63 days.

“Although the average response time is again too long we also have reason for hope,” Open State Foundation director Serv Wiemers said. “When officials pay more attention to freedom of information requests, as we have seen in Amsterdam and the finance ministry, processing times go down,” he told broadcaster NOS.