ICO shies away from formal action against Birmingham over poor FOI response times

The Information Commissioner’s Office has shied away from taking formal regulatory action against Birmingham City Council and two Whitehall departments over the time they take to respond to freedom of information requests.

The watchdog warned Birmingham, the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office in April that they faced the prospect of formal action over the delays.

The three organisations have now signed undertakings committing them to improve their response times.The ICO insisted that failure to comply with these undertakings could expose the three organinsations to formal action.

The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, said: “We’ve now had written assurances that a clear plan of action will be put in place by the public authorities that caused us most concern. I’m satisfied that this will now happen but do not rule out taking further action if needed.

“Timely responses to initial requests are key to an effective access to information regime. These firm commitments to improvement are very welcome. We are seeing good results from the ICO’s monitoring exercise and it’s essential that the improving trend continues.”

The ICO said it had monitored the performance of 33 public authorities for a period of three months to 31 December 2010, following concerns about delays in their responses to FOI requests. Of these, seven had been required to make improvements.

Four councils have signed undertakings since the beginning of May: the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham; the London Borough of Islington; Westminster City Council; and Wolverhampton City Council.

Another 19 organisations are being monitored in the three months to 30 June 2011.