Agenda item

This is a half year report of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, covering the period from 1 October 2012 to 31 March 2013.

The Committee received a report of the Head of Legal and Property Services setting out details of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 from 1October 2012 to 31 March 2013.

The Head of Legal and Property Services introduced her report and said that she had received an email from Councillor Brandon requesting further information on certain of the Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.  She advised that she had sent information in emails to all members of the committee answering his questions. 

The Head of Legal and Property Services referred to point 3.5 in the report and advised that the Revenues and Benefits Service had received a large number of requests not all of which had been answered.  She noted that the service had cleared much of the backlog; since the report had been produced the backlog had reduced to three outstanding requests. 

The Head of Legal and Property Services then advised that there were a number of requests outstanding regarding the IT services.  She said that she had spoken with staff in the service; although there had been no response by the time of the meeting, she would continue to seek answers and would update the committee when these were available. 

The Head of Legal and Property then gave a brief explanation of which organisations or individuals made FOI requests and types of topics covered. 

In reply to a question from the Chair regarding case number 1010299476 on page 21 of the report, the Head of Legal and Property advised that this request was not related to the Legal and Property Service but that she would ask the section involved and then circulate the answer.

ACTION:                     Head of Legal and Property

Councillor Brandon thanked the Head of Legal and Property and said that he appreciated the thoroughness of the work involved.

The Chair asked whether there was any benchmarking for FOIs with other local authorities.

The Head of Legal and Property replied that data had been received in the past from St Albans City and District Council which had enabled comparisons to be made.  There had, however, been no feed back from St Albans for some time and consequently benchmarking was no longer possible. 

Councillor Khan considered that a figure of 75% was meaningless unless benchmarking was in place. 

The Head of Legal and Property Services said that attempts had been made to obtain information from other local authorities but that these were not available.  In response to a suggestion from Councillor Khan that national benchmarks could be used, the Head of Legal and Property Services agreed to discover whether these existed.

ACTION:         Head of Legal and Property Services 

Councillor Williams asked for which areas of the Council most requests had been received.

The Head of Legal and Property replied that requests tended to follow trends; these could be initiated by topics in the media, items of current interest or could be generated by journalists.  She noted that 196 requests had been made during the previous six months and that this was an average number for the time span.   She then enumerated current trends:

·        Requests regarding rateable properties had been requested from the Revenues and Benefits Service

·        The Parking Service had received requests associated with challenging parking tickets

·        Companies regularly requested data when searching for information regarding the deceased: estates, burials and testator matters. 

·        Journalists made requests in connection with current ‘hot’ topics

In response to a query from Councillor Williams, the Head of Legal and Property Services said that FOIs were an expense to the Council in terms of officer time.

Replying to a further question from Councillor Williams with regard to data protection, she advised that queries regarding a third person were subject to data protection principles; where queries involved information on the enquirer themselves, data protection rules applied and a £10 fee was required.  She advised that there were fewer data protection than FOI requests and that the majority related to housing matters. 

Councillor Johnson said that 25% of FOI requests were not answered and that this was unacceptable.  He noted that the post of the officer who dealt with requests was about to be deleted and asked who would take responsibility for these matters in the future. 

The Head of Legal and Property replied that responsibility would be shared between two managers in the Customer Service Centre; she, however, would have overall responsibility for making sure that tasks were completed and would send notification to Heads of Service when deadlines for replies were close.   She added that the weekly updates would continue. 

RESOLVED –

that the contents of the report be noted.