We set out to understand and resolve the issues preventing an effective and efficient freedom of information request service.
We have a duty to respond to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests within 20 working days. The regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), expects us to answer 90% of request in this time. In recent years, we struggled to meet this expectation.
This project set out to understand why this was the case and what we could to improve our performance. Our Freedom of Information project report describes our full findings, recommendations, and actions.
We found that there were:
- Unclear responsibilities
- Opportunities to publish more data
- A lack of internal guidance
- Delays assigning the FOI to the right person
- A need for an enhanced tracking system
To resolve some of these issues we set up an enhanced tracking system using Microsoft Lists, Power Automate, and Power BI.
Our next steps are to:
- Monitor the performance of the tracking system and improve it based on user feedback
- Provide specialised training and internal guidance on how to respond to FOI requests
- Publish more data on our website for common FOI requests
Contact us