MID Devon District Council is considering changes to how it tells the public about information residents have requested.

Councils must publish disclosure logs outlining Freedom of Information requests and Environmental Information Regulation requests they have received.

While Mid Devon does do this on its website, some residents have requested that it be made more user friendly and clearer to understand.

These pleas came as the council’s scrutiny committee voted in favour of related changes around such requests.

The committee had previously suggested that it should be presented with quarterly figures on a dashboard linked to its performance for both types of requests, including the time it had taken to respond, whether residents had complained about the response they received and whether this was then escalated to the Information Commissioner.

Lisa Lewis, the council’s head of digital transformation and customer engagement, said she was aware that there were “some queries as to what the disclosure log should look like”, and suggested changes would be forthcoming.

“We are in the process of redesigning the disclosure log but we have a major cyber project on at the moment, and that is the primary focus of the team that would be required to do the redesign,” she said.

“As soon as that is completed, which should be in the next few weeks, we can review and design the disclosure log, hopefully between April and June.”

Resident Paul Elstone asked whether the council would mimic East Devon District Council’s disclosure log’s ease of use and clarity.

“If not, what is preventing this council from doing so?,” he asked.

Other residents agreed that East Devon District Council’s disclosure log was easy to use, and offered summaries of the requests by residents and the answers.

Bradley Gerrard