Freedom of Information request – removal of flags from council-controlled public spaces and assets
Please provide the recorded information below concerning flags removed by, for, or on the instructions of the council.

For the avoidance of doubt, this request is not limited to highways, highway assets or lampposts. In this request, “public spaces and assets”
means any publicly accessible land, building, structure, asset or street/public-realm furniture owned, occupied, managed, maintained or controlled by the council, or from which the council commissioned, instructed or paid for the removal of a flag. This includes, without limitation, parks, gardens, open spaces, town centres, civic buildings, council offices, libraries, leisure facilities, car parks, beaches or seafronts, flagpoles, lampposts, railings and other street furniture.

For each of the following financial years:
- 2022/23
- 2023/24
- 2024/25
- 2025/26

1. The number of flags removed by, for, or on the instructions of the council.

2. The council's recorded expenditure on removing them, including payments to contractors and any separately recorded internal costs.

3. If recorded, a breakdown by the type of flag removed – for example, the Union Flag, Saltire, St George's Cross or another flag type.

4. Whether the removal work was undertaken by council employees, a council-owned company or an external contractor.

5. The name of any external contractor, supplier or council-owned company used.

6. The council department or team responsible where the work was completed internally. I am not requesting the names of individual employees.

7. Any associated contract, purchase-order or invoice reference, if recorded.

8. The amount paid to each contractor or supplier for this work.

Please search the records of all relevant council services, including parks/open spaces, estates/property, public realm, facilities, events, environmental services, procurement and finance, as applicable. Please also consider relevant information held by a contractor or other person on the council's behalf.

If another public authority is responsible for highways or highway lampposts, please do not treat that as disposing of the whole request.
Please answer for every other council-controlled space, asset, function and record falling within the scope above. If you consider a specific part to be held by another authority, please identify that authority and the precise part or asset concerned, while responding to the remainder of this request.

Where event-level information is unavailable, please provide an annual breakdown. If contractor costs formed part of a wider contract and cannot be separately identified, please provide the contractor's name, the relevant contract and the total recorded contract value, while stating that flag-removal costs are not separately recorded.

If no flags were removed during a year, please record the figure as zero.
If information is not held or removal costs are not recorded separately, please state that clearly. If the council holds only part of the requested information, please provide that part and identify what is not held.