CRUMBRIA: 3.4.2026
MORE tales of superb public-sector efficiency reach us from Crumberland Council.
The Labour-daft authority has been ticked off by a watchdog for being somewhat off the pace in answering Freedom of Information requests (FOIs).
The Council is not just missing its own internal targets to answer FOIs within 20 working days, it has been served with an enforcement notice by regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The ICO stepped in on 28 May last year and suggested the Council clear the backlog of outstanding FOIs by 1 November 2025.
But computer says nooooo.
By January this year, the Council was still sitting on 116 overdue requests. Its latest reported performance was 77.2% on time against a target of 90%, leaving the service stubbornly in the “red”.
As a result, the Council has had to whip-up a six-page action plan to stop the watchdog biting its ankles.
Extra staff are being bustled into the “Information Governance” office and some job descriptions have had to be rewritten.
We feel sorry for the poor staff. The department has suffered losses and those who’d said ‘bye’ were not replaced.
It’s our understanding that the timeliness of an FOI response can sometimes rest or fall on whether a manager somewhere else in the empire fully responds to the request from the Information Governance team.
Presumably, if the manager’s too busy to get round to it, or, heaven forbid, off ill, then the deadline slips. Especially if their answers come up short.
Council bosses believe a “skills matrix” might help – (whatever the frig that is.)
They’ve also hit on the genius idea of actually recruiting more staff having not taken on anyone last year as the problem piled up.
In November, local Labour MP Martyr Campbell-Savours was shooting his mouth off in Parliament that the public should get information faster and that the Information Commissioner’s Office was too weak on FOI enforcement.
Forgetting to mention, of course, that the Labour Council he used to sit on has not exactly covered itself in glory.
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READ MORE: Cumbrian MP issues plea for faster access to information.
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