Council regularly misses legal deadlines for answering information requests

Bristol’s deputy mayor has admitted the council has a “problem” answering formal requests for information, missing legal deadlines and keeping poor records.

Members of the public can make formal requests for information from local authorities under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.

The law states that local authorities must respond within 20 working days of receiving a request.

But Bristol City Council missed that deadline in 40 per cent of cases in the three months to December last year, answering only 266 of 440 requests in time.

Deputy mayor Craig Cheney was forced to admit the figures after a member of the public asked for them at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, April 13, the final one for the ruling Labour administration before local elections take place next month.

Craig Cheney admitted failings. Photo: Bristol City Council

Totterdown resident Suzanne Audrey said she was “concerned” the figures were not included alongside others in the council’s latest official performance report.

Dr Audrey, who is a university researcher, said: “You are spending quite a lot of our money, and the Freedom of Information Act means that we’re able to ask you questions about that, to make you accountable for your actions, so that we can have better debates about what’s going on, and so that we can trust our public sector bodies.”

She said the council’s “prolonged poor performance” on freedom of information requests was “disappointing” and asked what the council was doing about it.

Some requests go back a “hugely long way” but it was not possible to find out how long because something is “seriously wrong” with the council’s record-keeping, she added.

The council’s performance report for quarter three of 2020/21 simply says: “The council’s response to FOIs continues to perform well below target and further work is being carried out to identify ways to improve in this area.”

Councillor Cheney said the council was “absolutely” trying to hit its target of responding to 90 per cent of FOI requests within 20 working days.

He said it was trying to streamline the process but the problem was a “systemic, long standing issue”.

“We are working on it, but it’s not easy,” he said.

He said Bristol received a “huge” number of requests compared with other local authorities, and they take a long time to answer because of the “depth of the process”.

A central team receives them and sends internal requests for information to other council staff, who then have to be chased for the answers.

The council has to respond within 20 days. Photo: Bristol City Council

This creates even more work for council officers already depleted after 11 years of austerity and stretched by the additional work created by the pandemic, councillor Cheney said.

“It is a problem,” he said, noting quarter three was “particularly difficult”.

Mayor Marvin Rees added: “The resources of the organisation have been unbelievably stretched over the last year.

“It’s not an excuse, I’m just sharing with you the nature of the challenge.”

Dr Audrey said she was reassured to hear the council was tackling the issue.

“I do have some sympathy,” she said. “I can see the struggle. It’s just reassuring to think that there’s some attempt to sort of streamline it all because otherwise it makes people suspicious when they may not need to be.”

A government white paper from 1997, which contained proposals for the Freedom of Information Act 2000, stated: “Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in governance and defective decision-making.”

Amanda Cameron is a local democracy reporter for Bristol.

Main photo: Lowie Trevena

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