Under section 10 of the the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) public authorities, have 20 working days to answer a request for information. Last week we wrote about a new report by openDemocracy, Transparency Under Threat: Monitoring FOI compliance in the UK, which claims that many authorities are consistently failing to comply with the statutory deadline.
Since last year, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has pursued a tougher FOI enforcement policy. Recently it issued Enforcement Notices against three police forces for poor FOI performance which has led to significant backlogs in their responses:
- Dyfed Powys Police (DPP) – Compliance levels fell as low as 6% (June 2023) and the Information Commissioner received 13 complaints in 2023 in relation to timeliness of responses. By 9 November 2024, DPP is required to respond to all information requests which were outside of 20 working days when the Enforcement Notice was served on 9 May 2024.
- Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) – Compliance levels were consistently low between 60% to 67% from April 2023 to February 2024. By 1 November 2024, MPS is required to respond to the backlog of 362 cases which were outside of 20 working days when the enforcement notice was served on 1 May 2024.
- South Wales Police (SWP) – Compliance levels fell to 45% in July 2023 and as of 31 April 2024 167 requests were overdue, with one case being 122 days old. By 20 December 2024, SWP is required to respond to all information requests which were outside of 20 working days when the enforcement notice was served on 20 June 2024.
This and other FOI developments will be discussed in detail on our forthcoming FOI Update workshop.
