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The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) received 51 complaints against Caerphilly County Borough Council between January 2019 and June 2021, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed.
The FOI was submitted to the ICO by the council’s Independent group leader Kevin Etheridge, who represents the Blackwood ward.
What is a Freedom of Information request?
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request can be made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
This Act allows everyone, including members of the public and the press, to request information which is held by public authorities, such as councils, government, the NHS and police forces for example.
Public authorities are obliged to provide this information when requested, and are required to do so within 20 working days.
However, there are some instances where the information does not have to be provided.
If a public body decides the request is not in the public interest, they can decline to provide the information.
They can also decline if they feel the request is vexatious, or if the requester has already received the information from a previous request.
Also, if the cost of providing the information is too high. For central government departments, this limit is £600, while for all other public bodies the limit is £450.
What is the Information Commissioner’s Office?
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is an independent body set up to uphold information rights and to promote openness and transparency by public bodies.
It also deals with complaints regarding FOI request and Data Protection.
Most of the ICO’s budget comes from organisations paying the Data Protection Fee.
Responding to Cllr Etheridge’s request, the ICO said the number of complaints includes both data protection complaints and FOI complaints.
Of these 51 complaints, seven decision notices were issued against the council.
Of the 51 complaints, 24 related to the council’s handling of FOI or Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) requests – with three decision notices issued.
In this time period, the council received a total of 2,850 FOI and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) requests – meaning 0.84% of requests received resulted in a complaint – and 0.14% resulted in a decision notice being issues against the local authority.
A council spokesperson said: “As one of the largest local authorities in Wales, the council receives a large number of information requests under FOI, EIR and Data Protection every year.
“The majority are answered in full, but some requests are subject to a lawful exemption on disclosure or a fees refusal. Therefore it is to be expected that the council and the ICO would receive appeals against these decisions.”
The spokesman added: “It is important to view the council’s record on responding to information requests during this period in the context of restrictions on office access over the last 15 months due to Covid, which prevented some hard copy information being located to respond to requests.
“In addition, for several months at the start of the national lockdown council staff, including some of our Information Governance officers, were partially redeployed to assist vulnerable people in our communities.
“The Council seeks to continually improve all our services, and the process for dealing with information requests is constantly reviewed.”
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