Discounted tickets for residents donated to Parish Councils for major music festival

Question

Dear Councillor Q&A

One of the UK's larger music festivals is held here locally each year, and in order to help mitigate the disruption caused to local residents the festival organisers donate a number of discounted 'residents' tickets' to the councils of the surrounding parishes – this in order for these councils to sell these to their residents (and to residents only) for the council to raise funds.

However, I have found that in all but one of the parishes concerned the process by which these (really quite heavily-discounted) residents' tickets are allocated and sold to residents to be more than a little opaque, with little information available other than (as given in the councils' accounts) the amount raised each year.

Therefore, to keep it brief, I would like to know what one should consider with regard to such donations when making any request for further information about the matter from the Parish Councils concerned.

For instance, which information should I expect to be held by the councils concerned with regard to the receipt, allocation, sale, etc. of these donated tickets? And what rules and regulations should a council follow in this regard?

Many thanks.

Kind regards

'Busybody'

Answer 1

I suspect you won't receive details of the names and addresses of the recipients if you ask, on data protection grounds, but there's no reason why you can't ask for the process adopted in allocating the tickets.

Comments

Due to the unusual nature of this, I can't think of any rules and regulations as such, but a transparent approach would be prudent. The gold standard would be some form of ballot in which all interested parties have an equal chance of success.

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You won't receive the names of the recipients if they are members of the public. But you should be told (if you ask) if a councillor or a member of their family has received the tickets.

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Apologies for not replying a great deal sooner, but many thanks for your replies here.
It's a job to know what to do for the best, but I think some FOIs might be in order. I understand I couldn't expect to find out 'who' has received tickets (as interesting as that might be!). So it would be more general information like: number of tickets donated to the council; type/price/number of discounted tickets sold, etc. Just to get a better idea of the situation: as there's very little to go on otherwise.
Only one of the parishes concerned holds a ballot, which is by far the best way to deal with the matter. But in the other instances it seems to be administered by individual councillor(s), and not by the Clerk as you might expect. Nonetheless, if information were requested, then I am I right to presume councillors would be required to supply all the information in order for the Clerk to response?

Many thanks again.