Agenda item

This report provides Members with updates in respect of:

·       Responses and updates to queries and questions from Committee in July 2023;

·       Corporate Governance Team (CGT) performance indicators update;

·       Information Commissioners Office (ICO) enforcement notice;

·       Ombudsmen updates;

·       Covert surveillance training.

The committee considered a report that provided:

·          responses and updates to queries and questions from Audit and Governance Committee in July 2023

·        Corporate Governance Team (CGT) performance indicators update

·        Information Commissioners Office (ICO) enforcement notice;

·        ombudsmen update including:

o   Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) and Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS)

cases from the previous report in July 2023 and to date of preparing the report on 26 October 2023;

o   Update on HOS

·        covert surveillance training

The Information Governance and Feedback Team Manager/Data Protection Officer provided an update, noting that:

·        officers had now completed and sent valid responses to all 261 overdue Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, and the Improvement Plan (Annex 4 to the report) had been published online. The ICO had confirmed the council had complied with their enforcement notice and this positive result would shortly be published on their website. Once available, officers agreed to share the uniform resource locater (URL) with members.

·        it was anticipated that further housing complaints would be escalated into the Housing Ombudsman Service due to no win no fee solicitors chasing customers, and the Housing Ombudsman strengthening their code of practice.  The committee would be updated as and when cases and decisions arose.

·        following the covert surveillance training provided to members on 8 November, officers welcomed any feedback on the content of the annual report. 

The committee noted the significant progress made to eradicate the backlog of FOI requests and they thanked officers for achieving this result. Members did however share their concerns regarding the delay in officers disclosing the backlog, and they requested a further explanation regarding the timeframes.  The Information Governance and Feedback Team Manager reassured the committee that:

·        the action log contained a proposal to ensure members were kept informed of responses that were out of statutory timeframe. 

·        the delay in disclosing the FOI backlog position would be discussed with the ICO Group Manager and reported back to members.

During discussion and in answer to questions raised, it was noted that:

·        the Improvement Plan would be revised to ensure members could monitor the progress, and completed outcomes.

·        training was delivered to staff via various routes, and a training and awareness log had been incorporated to enable the team to identify any gaps in provision. Training resources were also available on the ICO website and these were utilised by staff.

·        the stretch target set by the ICO was 95% or above and further analysis could be included in future updates to clarify the council’s position.

·        the council was obliged, by the legislation, to explain the escalation route on every FOI and Environment Information Request (EIR) response. 

·        the Improvement Plan was regularly updated and published online, and updates would be reported at an Audit and Governance Committee meeting.

·        officers were continuing to recognise the number of contracts in existence that may not contain the full robust clauses around FOI.

·        officers worked with the Business Intelligence Team to manage corporate performance reports published on the council’s open data platform, and following further discussion regarding consolidating the data to enable a more user friendly system, the Chair agreed to investigate this further.

Resolved: That the details contained in the report be noted.

Reason: So that members were updated with details of the corporate governance report.