Greater Manchester Police ordered to clear backlog of 850 Freedom of Information requests

Greater Manchester Police has been ordered to clear a huge backlog of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued an enforcement notice for "repeated failures" in responding to requests.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) currently has a backlog of 850 overdue requests, of which more than 800 are over six months old and 580 over a year old.

GMP has been given 35 days to respond with an action plan to clear the backlog by July next year, or it could be found in contempt of court.

The enforcement notice comes after the ICO issued a practice recommendation to GMP in February after it was found to be the most complained about police force for timeliness over the previous 12 months.

The ICO, which is the UK's independent regulator for data protection and information rights law, said GMP wanted to clear the backlog by the end of 2024, but this was deemed unacceptable.

Phillip Angell, Head of FOI Casework at the Information Commissioner’s Office, said:

"Greater Manchester Police has currently done little to address the response backlog. Whilst we recognise that an action plan has been put in place and some progress has been made to improve its timeliness since the issuing of the Practice Recommendation, we are not seeing the improvement both we and the public need to see at the pace we need to see it.

"Improved response times to incoming requests should not be made at the expense of clearing the existing backlog – they should go hand in hand."

Ian Cosh, Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO) at Greater Manchester Police, said the forces takes the notice "incredibly seriously" and have an "action plan in place which is already in motion", to respond to requests.

He said: "We have introduced a robust action plan which includes new practices and processes to better service the public’s right to request information, which has already delivered positive results.

"GMP has focused on delivering long-term and sustainable improvement in our information access service. As a result, our compliance rate has improved significantly, exceeding 80% consistently over the last four months and the national average for police forces which currently stands at 76%.

"I do not take these steps in the right direction as complacency, but I want to provide the public reassurance that I’m confident that our action plan will result in us managing outstanding requests in a timely manner and maintaining compliancy with statutory requirements."

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