UK COMMUNITIES FACE FOI BACKLOG

COMMUNITIES FACES FOI BACKLOG

 
 

Info management criticised

 
 

MONDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2008 17:26

The information commissioner has criticised a Whitehall department for the way it handles information requests.

 
 

Richard Thomas made a formal practice recommendation on Monday in relation to the Department for Communities and Local Government's (CLG) handling of Freedom of Information (FoI) requests.

 
 

The advice concerns the department's failures in carrying out internal reviews – required if someone complains about an answer to an FoI request - within 20 working days, or 40 days if there are exceptional circumstances.

 
 

An audit by the commissioner reported that there was "a significant backlog of internal reviews", some of which were more than 400 working days old, even after the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) had bought the problem to the department's attention.

 
 

In his advice, Thomas raised questions about the priority and resources that the department is devoting to information management and FoIs.

 
 

He also welcomed news that the department was looking at the backlog and resourcing, but said the department had "failed to demonstrate an appropriate level of commitment to improvement and failed to offer acceptable explanations for performance issues".

 
 

Pasted from <http://www.civilservicenetwork.com/news/article.html?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=58983&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=29&cHash=1519075ec1>