The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued an enforcement notice to Shropshire Council for its poor handling of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act.
It said the council confirmed it had a weak FoI request handling system, with individual service areas responsible for recording and collating their own requests.
The council said it had plans to clear its backlog by the end of March, but 143 were still unanswered towards the end of April. The oldest unanswered request dated back to April 2021, with remaining requests dating from January 2022 and every subsequent month.
The enforcement notice requires the council to respond to all outstanding requests over 20 working days old, no later than six months from the date of the notice. It is also required to devise and publish an action plan to mitigate any future delays to FOI requests, within 35 days from the date of the notice.
Phillip Angell, head of FoI casework at the ICO, said: “People have a legal right to be able to ask their council about its actions and receive an answer promptly. In its poor handling of FOI requests Shropshire Council has been failing to be transparent and accountable. We’ve demanded it does better.”
