Freedom of Information - Annual Report 2021-22
Argyll and Bute Council · 15 September 2022
Back to Audit and Scrutiny Committee — 15 September 2022 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
Page 1
ARGYLL AND BUTE COUNCIL Audit and Scrutiny Committee Legal and Regulatory Support 15th September 2022 Freedom of Information – Annual Report 2021-22 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 This report is to update the Audit & Scrutiny Committee on the position regarding the recording, responding to, monitoring and reporting of requests for information under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIR’s) for the period between 01 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. 2.0 RECOMMENDATIONS 2.1 The Audit & Scrutiny Committee consider and note the terms of this report. 3.0 DETAIL 3.1 A total of 1,233 requests for information were received during the period - 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022. Overall, 93% of these requests (1,150) were responded to within the statutory timescale of 20 working days and 83 requests were responded to after 20 working days. These totals include requests for information from the Health and Social Care Partnership (Social Work side) and Live Argyll. 3.2 A breakdown by Department and detail around late responses is provided in Appendix 1. 3.3 There were 33 requests for review made during this period, which equates to less than 3% of the total number of requests. 28 were responded to within the 20 working day statutory timescale (85%), and the 5 issued late required more time to gather information and investigate complex issues. 3.4 The overall response rate within timescale has decreased slightly from 94% in 2020/21 to 93% in 2021/22. As the details provided in appendix 1 show, many service areas achieved a very high level of performance, between 98-100%. 3.5 One case was investigated by OSIC in 2021/22, and after some additional information was provided to the requestor, the application was withdrawn.
Page 2
3.6 The Compliance and Regulatory team continues to work with Departments to seek to improve response rates where required, and deliver training and provide guidance to allow officers to appropriately respond to information requests. 3.7 The Compliance and Regulatory team provide monthly updates to the Chief Executive, the Chief Officer, Directors, Heads of Service and the departmental FOI reps. Quarterly reports are provided to all DMTs. 4.0 CONCLUSION 4.1 Many Services maintained an excellent performance level throughout 2021/22, and the overall result of 93% of responses issued within timescale is positive, given the pressures on some service areas where high numbers of information requests were received. 4.2 The Compliance and Regulatory team continues to work with Departments to seek to improve response rates where required, and deliver training and provide guidance to allow officers to appropriately respond to information requests. 5.0 IMPLICATIONS 5.1 Policy None 5.2 Financial None 5.3 Legal Possible breach of statutory requirement to respond to requests 5.4 HR None 5.5.1 Fairer Scotland Duty None 5.5.2 Equalities – Protected Characteristics None 5.5.3 Socio Economic Duty None 5.5.4 Islands None 5.6 Risk None 5.7 Customer Service The relatively low number of requests for review is indicative that we are responding appropriately to requests and customers are receiving the information they are looking for. Douglas Hendry Executive Director with responsibility for Legal and Regulatory Support 22nd August 2022 For further information contact: Iain Jackson, Governance, Risk and Safety Manager 01546 604188 APPENDICES Appendix 1 – Departmental/Service stats & Late Response Details