Worst performance on government FOI requests since 2017
Covid-19 led to more delays in responding to freedom of information by the S cottish Government than at any point since 2017, figures show.
The S cottish Government to o k l o n g e r t h a n t h e s t a t ut o r y d e a d l i n e o f 2 0 d ays t o respond to a freedom of information request 346 times in 2020, up to mid-novemb er, with the total number likely to be higher.
It is the highest number of delayed responses since 2017 when 454 requests were late b u t i s a n i m p r o ve m e n t o n the same figure in 2016 when more than 600 requests were responded to late.
A government spokesperson said: “We absolutely recognise the importance of upholding information rights, and continue to respond as promptly as possible to requests for information. Our FOI performance has improved greatly over the last three years, reply
ing on time to 95 per cent of requests in 2019-20.
“T h e C o r o n a v i r u s ( S c o t - land) Bill brought in tempo - rar y measures that provided much needed breathing space to allow public authorities to focus on dealing with the pandemic.
“We respect that the current FOISA timescales have been r e s t o r e d a n d p e r f o r ma n c e has improved significantly in recent months.”
The government was heavily criticised in 2018 for simi l a r p r a c t i c e i n a r e p o r t by t h e I n f o r m a t i o n C o m m i s - sioner. Darren Fitzhenry, the c o mmi s s i o n e r a t t h e t i me , found “unjustifiable, significant delays” in some cases and that journalists and political researchers were subject to an “additional layer of clearance” that he recommended should end.
The same repor t criticised t h e g o ve r n m e n t ’s p r a c t i c e of referring FOI requests for clearance by ministers simply because they came from journalists, MSPS or researchers.
The government said it was “happy to accept” Mr Fitzhenry’s recommendations, which i n c l u d e d i mp r ove me n t s t o clearance procedures, quality assurance, training, case handling, monitoring and review procedures.
And in November last year, t h e S c o t t i s h G o v e r n m e n t c l a i m e d i t h a d t h e “m o s t op en and transparent free - dom of information regime i n t h e U K ”. H owe ve r i t h a s b e e n c r i t i c i s e d b y M S P s f o r a l a c k o f t r a n s p a r e n c y.