Two councils added to Information Commissioner's FOI watchlist

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has said that Barnet and Manchester City councils are to be monitored this quarter over concerns about the timeliness of their responses to FOI requests.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, a public authority must respond to an FOI request within 20 working days and the two councils are being monitored after the ICO received a significant number of complaints about their failure to respond to requests within the statutory time limit. The Metropolitan Police Service is also to be monitored for the same reason.

The monitoring period will last until 30 June 2013. Failure to show signs of improvement during this period may result in enforcement action.

The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, said: "Responding to freedom of information (FOI) requests within the time limit of 20 working days is not only a legal requirement under the FOI Act, but also an important means of demonstrating transparency and accountability to the UK taxpayer.

“The three authorities on today’s list have been selected because they are failing to respond to FOI requests in a timely manner and generating a high number of complaints to my office. We expect to see clear signs of progress throughout the monitoring period.

“We are aware of further concerns expressed about shortfalls in the performance of some government departments. We are reviewing the most recent set of statistics issued by the Ministry of Justice and comparing these with our own experience in dealing with complaints about these departments.”