Report of the Group Head of Democracy and Governance

The committee received a report of the Group Head of Democracy and Governance outlining the half yearly performance of the Council in responding to Freedom of Information Act requests received between 1 April and 30 September 2020.

The Group Head of Democracy and Governance introduced the report.  She explained that 372 requests had been received and this was 33 more than in the previous half year.  Some requests had been responded to outside the 20 day period and only 6 requests had not been responded to at all.  This was an improvement compared to 29 requests not responded to in the last half year.

The Group Head of Democracy and Governance advised that the Revenue and Benefits Service was attempting to get the backlog of requests down.  They employed a dedicated officer to deal with the requests; who was assisted by an officer in the Customer Services Centre.

In addition, Group and Executive Heads had been given monthly details of requests received for their area to enable them to monitor response times to help get numbers down and improve the compliance rate.  The requests received were wide ranging and varied with no trend identified.

In response to a question from the Chair, the Group Head of Democracy and Governance explained that the council did not publish every response.  If a member had a particular question they could contact her or the Customer Service Centre and be provided with a copy of the question and answer.  She added that some information was available on the ‘What Do We know’ website and reiterated that the council did not publish all data on-line.

RESOLVED –

                        that the report is noted.