Agenda item

Report to follow.

The Committee received a report setting out the process for making both a Freedom of Information (FOI) and Subject Access Requests (SAR), along with information on trends and an improvement plan for the process. During the introduction to the report the following points were noted:-

·         An improvement process was in place for the Council’s handling of both FOIs and SARs. The improvement journey was currently being progressed with process mapping due to be completed.

·         A new case management system would go live in August which would help to streamline data and improve accessibility.

·         Reports were also being made to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on the improvement process. The ICO target for compliance with both FOIs and SARs was 90%. Since December 2018 the Council had received 100% compliance.

It was recognised that there had been a lot of work within the team over the past few months to improve both the FOI and SARs processes. It was agreed that it would be important to informally review the progress made in six months to find out if the changes were having the desired impact. If there had not been the expected improvement, then another report would be requested for the Committee. If progress was being made then the next report would be the annual report in 12 months. 

It was agreed that a key performance indicator of whether the service was improving would be the response time to requests, with it hoped that 90% of FOI and SAR requests could be dealt with within their specified timescales. Other indicators suggested included whether the request was answered and the number of requests for review.

It was questioned whether the team was being supported across the Council to allow it to compile the information required to respond to FOI and SAR requests. In response it was advised that there was a structure in place identifying those responsible for responding in each team. When the new case management system went live it would give a further opportunity to embed these processes within the organisational culture of the Council through the delivery of targeted service training.

It was hoped that the new case management system would provide a wider range of data which would allow the team to identify those teams responsible for creating blockages in providing responses.

At the conclusion of this item the Chair thanked the officer for her attendance at the meeting and noted that the Committee had been encouraged by the improvement plan and looked forward to seeing the progress made in the coming months.

Conclusions

Following discussion of the report, the Committee reached the following conclusions:-

1.    It was recognised that there had been historically poor performance relating to Freedom of Information Requests, but it was welcomed that this was being addressed through the improvement plan.

2.    It was agreed that FOIs and SARs performance would be formally reviewed in twelve months, but an informal update was requested in six months to allow the Committee to monitor whether the improvement plan was having an effect.

3.    It was requested that the next report in twelve months includes information on the role out of training for FOIs and SARs.