MID Devon District Council is going to publish information more frequently about complaints or requests for information from residents.

Quarterly data will now be included on one of the authority’s performance dashboards on the number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests it has received.

And it will outline where it has rejected requests, and whether this decision is being reviewed internally or whether residents have escalated it to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The move comes just a month after the ICO ruled against the council, accusing it of providing “poor arguments”, delaying publication of information the public has a right to know and not showing it understands the law.

Data on the ICO’s website shows that since October 2021, 12 complaints have been upheld against the council, and eight not upheld. Some cases – known as decision notices – that are referred to the ICO contain multiple complaints.

Residents at the meeting criticised the council for not providing as much information as other councils about the FOI requests it has received.

And others said the council, in trying to contextualise the number of ICO cases it deals with, had chosen some much larger councils to compare themselves against, and had only juxtaposed their performance with one Devon authority, Exeter.

Resident Nick Quinn said: “Instead of comparing with neighbouring district councils, over the same period, Mid Devon’s performance is compared to county councils, including faraway Kent,” he said.

“Was this because the officer had advanced knowledge of the government’s white paper on their plans for local government [reorganisation] or was it because every other Devon district council has had fewer decision notices than Mid Devon?”

Barry Warren, a former Mid Devon district councillor, felt the report the scrutiny committee was discussing was not comprehensive enough.

“The report does not cover all of the issues as it does not look at criticisms and recommendations from the Information Commissioner, or what actions are taken or disclosed thereby running the risk of reputational damage to the council,” he said.

He also queried a suggestion that there should be an annual update on the performance of the council’s FOI processing, suggesting greater frequency would be preferable.

Lisa Lewis, head of digital transformation and customer engagement, said the council always analysed any decisions made against it by the ICO to learn what it could do better, and did engage in staff training if it felt that was required.

Ms Lewis agreed to update the scrutiny committee about FOI requests every three months.

Cllr Sue Robinson (Liberal Democrat, Cullompton Padbrook), said the most important issue is “regaining the trust of the public. This is because some members of the public, for various reasons, have less trust in our administration and of officers than it would be helpful to have.

“Certain members of the public are here frequently and we as an administration are banging on about openness and honesty.

“We want the public to believe we are doing a good job and all the time they have any evidence, however trivial, that we are not doing our best could be changed.”

Cllr Rhys Roberts (Conservative, Cadbury) agreed the issue was about “accountability and transparency”.

“We need to ensure we are on the right side of the argument,” he said.

The committee voted in favour of the move to quarterly reporting of FOI requests and the responses to them, alongside any ICO cases.

Bradley Gerrard