Dressing down Council criticised over information requests backlog

BRISTOL City Council has been hit with a second enforcement notice due to its ongoing lack of transparency.

- Alex SEABROOK Local democracy reporter

The Information Commissioner's Office has ordered the council to get better at responding to subject access requests (SARs).

Anybody has the legal right to ask a public organisation, such as a council, to send them information they hold about them. While responding to these requests is onerous, public organisations have to respond by law, in a similar way to freedom of information requests.

But in Bristol, people are often made to wait much longer than the legal deadline. Now the Information Commissioner, a regulator, has wrapped the council on its knuckles for failing to respond to subject access requests.

Sally-Anne Pool, head of investigations at the ICO, said: "Subject access requests are a fundamental right that allows people to know what information organisations hold about them and how it is being used. Despite our repeated engagement with Bristol City Council over a sustained period of time, limited progress has been made to clear a backlog of requests.