Freedom of Information Requests

Matthew S Myatt made this Freedom of Information request to Eastleigh Borough Council

The request was successful.

From: Matthew S Myatt

27 February 2010

Dear Roxanne,

Please can you inform me of the total number of Freedom of
Information Requests that the Council has not responded to within
the legally required time frame of 20 working days since the
introduction of the FOI Act.

Yours faithfully,

Matthew S Myatt

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From: Bascombe, Roxanne
Eastleigh Borough Council

1 March 2010

Dear Matthew,

Re: Request for Information

Thank you for your request which we received on the 1^st March 2010.

I can confirm that Eastleigh Borough Council does hold the information
requested.

Please can you inform me of the total number of Freedom of Information
Requests that the Council has not responded to within the legally required
time frame of 20 working days since the introduction of the FOI Act?

51 - however some of these requests were late due to legitimate reasons.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further enquiries
regarding your request.

If you wish to make a formal complaint with regards to your information
request please contact:

Mr Richard Ward

Head of Legal and Democratic Services

Civic Offices

Leigh Road

Hampshire

SO50 9YN

Fax: 023 80 62977

Email: [1][email address]

If you are unhappy with the way in which your complaint is dealt with then
you may apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The contact
details for the Information Commissioner are:

The Information Commissioners Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely

Roxanne Bascombe

ROXANNE BASCOMBE
Freedom of Information Officer
Eastleigh Borough Council
Civic Offices
Leigh Road
Eastleigh
SO50 9YN
02380 68(8285)

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Matthew S Myatt left an annotation (16 July 2010)

51..!! Fifty One request not actioned with within the legal time frame..!! What a joke and why has the council not been prosecuted.??

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Alex Skene left an annotation (16 July 2010)

Eastleigh don't publish FOI stats so it's not possible to judge whether this is a small or large percentage of all requests. 51 will be over the lifetime of the Act (ie 5 years) so 10 per year doesn't sound too bad...

Some of those requests taking more than 20 days will be to allow for "such time as is reasonable in the circumstances" for considering the public interest test on an exemption, as allowed under FOI Act Section 10(3).

You can't prosecute for failure under FOI:

FOI Act Section 56: "(1) This Act does not confer any right of action in civil proceedings in respect of any failure to comply with any duty imposed by or under this Act."

Only complaints to the ICO can result in any action being taken against public authorities, who are usually given plenty of chances to make things right.

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