A drop within the variety of council Freedom of Info requests being answered on time has been partly blamed on excessive profile council initiatives.
In 2021/22, South Ayrshire Council obtained 928 FOI requests. As a quantity required responses from completely different departments, the overall variety of requests processed was 1,163.
In a report back to the council’s service and efficiency panel, it was revealed that there was a drop within the variety of requests answered throughout the statutory 20 working days, from 85 p.c in 2020/21 to 72 p.c in 2021/22.
A lot of requests referring to ‘excessive profile’ points had been highlighted within the report together with the variety of FOI requests every attracted:
- Citadel Leisure Centre – 13 requests
- Hourstons – 10
- Darlington Church Corridor – 15
- Ayr Widespread Good – 9
- Ayr Station Lodge – 5
Info and governance lead Debbie McVey’s report said: “All 319 late FOISA requests had been attributable to providers failing to offer the data on time.
“Nonetheless it's recognised that providers didn't at occasions have entry to paper information attributable to workplace closures in response to the nationwide lock-down restrictions.”
Solely 21 of the 928 requesters sought a overview of selections. Of those, three went a stage additional and requested an impartial investigation from the Scottish Info Commissioner.
The report sought to elucidate the problems.
It said: “That is partly a results of a number of providers requiring enter into giant and complicated requests relating to high-profile council initiatives and finishing priorities inside providers to offer data inside time scales.
“Whereas there's a discount within the variety of requests being issued throughout the 20 working-day statutory time scale, the Council obtained 165 extra data requests in 2021/22 than within the earlier reporting 12 months.”
Ms McVey mentioned one of many suggestions was for the council to take a proactive method to publishing data on improvement initiatives, to maintain the general public suggested in an ‘open and clear method’.
She mentioned: “This will additionally cut back the variety of data requests obtained by providers concerned, permitting them to direct useful resource in direction of operational issues.
“Proactively publishing data has the potential to cut back the
variety of requests and once more enhance efficiency in responding to data requests obtained.
Members will be aware that the Council obtained 165 extra data requests between 2020/21 and 2021/22.
South Ayrshire Council additionally identified that it carried out positively when in comparison with comparable councils.
Panel chair Bob Shields requested Ms McVey: “No-one likes to see an apparent lower in efficiency. Is it merely a case of too many requesters and never sufficient employees to reply the requests?
Ms McVey responded: “It's a development that almost all native authorities are developing towards simply now.
“There's an growing quantity in requests and a smaller useful resource to truly reply these requests.”
She mentioned that she was taking a look at introducing Microsoft 365 throughout providers to make it less complicated to co-ordinate and centralise data.
SNP councillor Ian Cochrane steered that the data printed may go additional than improvement initiatives.
He mentioned: “If each council determination and coverage was marketed on the web site that might see a discount in purposes for data. I might suggest all the pieces attainable ought to be accessible through the council web site.”
Cllr Shields concluded: “I see phrases like proactive, open and clear. It does make me really feel a bit happier. I'm very inspired to see this proactive facet to continuous enchancment.”
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