Report of the Head of Democracy and Governance

This report provides the half year update of Freedom of Information requests between 1 October 2014 and 31 March 2015.

The Committee received a report of the Head of Democracy and Governance setting out details of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 from 1 October 2014 to 31 March 2015.

The Head of Democracy and Governance referred members to paragraph 3.5 of the report which showed a reduction in the percentage of replies responded to out of time; from 24.5% to 11.9%. 

The Chair asked about progress on fixing Lagan as referred to in 3.8 of the report.

The ICT Client Section Head explained that the issue with Lagan was the functioning of an electronic form that enabled Freedom of Information requests to be recorded.  Capita had advised her of a resolution.  An engineer would be tasked to resolve the matter starting on Monday 6 July 2015.  She had spoken to the engineer and he believed that the problem could be resolved.  The resolution was reliant on one member of staff as there was not a lot of resilience within the Capita team.

Councillor Williams was pleased to see the reduction in the number of delayed responses.  He referred to some of the requests referred to in the Appendix to the report and asked for clarification.

The Head of Democracy and Governance advised that some requests were submitted to all councils and not just Watford to see what type of response they would receive.  The request for information about councillors as landlords had been responded to on the basis that this information could not be supplied as it was not information that the Council was required to keep. The request about vexatious requests had probably arisen following the results of some litigation with the Information Commissioner.  This was not a matter the Council had been involved in.  Finally Mr Palmer, an ex-councillor, had submitted requests following a Council meeting. 

Councillor Khan commented that Mr Palmer was entitled to submit requests as was every other citizen.  He asked officers why there had been such a delay in getting the Lagan problem resolved; the timeframe seemed too long.

The ICT Client Section Head agreed that a resolution had taken a long time.  The Council was in a contractual legal process with Capita.  Part of the issues were aged requests; Lagan and the FOI forms was one of those requests.  Capita had two engineers on whom they were exceptionally reliant, one of whom was an ex-officer. The officer had contributed to the introduction of Lagan when it had originally been installed.  He had tried to schedule in time to resolve the matter but it had proved difficult due to the amount of work he had to do.  The matter had been raised with Capita and the company had scheduled the work several times.  Previously the engineer had not been able to do the work as when other issues arose he had to stop and resolve them instead.

The Director of Finance confirmed that there had been a lack of resources and resilience at Capita.

Following a question from Councillor Khan, the Head of Democracy and Governance advised that she would check the request about 99 North Western Avenue and forward the information to the Committee.

Councillor Khan noted that in some cases the requestors details had not been supplied.  He asked whether the Council was required to respond in those cases.

The Head of Democracy and Governance explained that when the information had been forwarded to the Freedom of Information officer, the originating officer had not provided the details.  Many requests were sent to all local authorities assuming that they carried out all functions.  A response is recorded even if it was to advise that the request needed to be redirected.

RESOLVED –

1.      that the contents of the report be noted.

2.      that the requested information be circulated to the Committee.

ACTION: Head of Democracy and Governance