Sandwell’s Information Highway? More Like an Information Dirt Track

We hear an awful lot about transparency, openness and accountability in local government.

Lovely words.

They look particularly good in strategies, committee reports, corporate plans and glossy presentations.

But try actually getting hold of some information and the so-called information highway can very quickly start looking more like a dirt track.

A muddy one.

With potholes.

And several signs missing.

That is increasingly my experience when trying to obtain information not just from Sandwell Council, but from other public bodies too.

And the more I deal with Freedom of Information requests, Subject Access Requests, Environmental Information Regulations, internal reviews and the Information Commissioner’s Office, the more I wonder how on earth an ordinary resident who has never encountered any of this before is supposed to navigate it.

Why am I submitting more FOIs?

I am making considerably more Freedom of Information requests than I used to.

Not because I have suddenly discovered an exciting new hobby.

Believe me, there are better ways to spend your time than drafting an FOI, waiting for a response, chasing it, reading the response, discovering half the questions haven’t actually been answered, writing back again, requesting an internal review and eventually compiling a complaint for the Information Commissioner.

I submit FOIs because too much information simply isn’t readily available.

If the information was already published properly on the Council website, I wouldn’t need to ask for it.

That is surely the point of genuine transparency.

Residents should be able to find out:

• what decisions have been made;

• who made them;

• why they were made;

• what evidence was considered;

• what money was spent;

• which organisations received funding;

• what consultations took place;

• what residents actually said;

• and what happened afterwards.

Too often, obtaining those answers requires an FOI.

And even then, receiving a response doesn’t necessarily mean receiving an answer.

“Thank you for your response… but you haven’t answered the question”

This is becoming an increasingly familiar part of the process.

You ask eight questions.

You get a response.

Question 1 is answered.

Question 2 gets half an answer.

Question 3 appears to have disappeared.

Question 4 is answered with something vaguely relating to Question 6.

Questions 5 and 7 receive the magical word:

“Nil.”

And Question 8 apparently never existed.

Then you write back.

Again.

The frustrating thing is that every additional email creates more work for everybody.

More work for the resident.

More work for Council officers.

More work for whoever conducts the internal review.

And eventually, perhaps, more work for the ICO.

So when public bodies talk about the increasing number of FOI requests, perhaps they should also ask:

How many follow-up emails, internal reviews and ICO complaints would never have been necessary if the original questions had simply been answered properly in the first place?

Sandwell’s own performance figures show there is a problem

This isn’t simply my perception.

Sandwell Council’s own performance figures show significant problems.

The Council’s target for answering Freedom of Information requests within the required timescale is 90%.

Its performance during 2025/26 was:

• Q1 – 71%

• Q2 – 67%

• Q3 – 70%

• Q4 – 70%

• Annual performance – 70%

There were 1,329 FOI requests during the year.

The Council says FOI demand increased by 22%.

But even with that increase, 70% against a 90% target is hardly something to celebrate.

And the picture for Subject Access Requests is considerably worse.

Again, the target was 90%.

Actual performance was:

• Q1 – 52%

• Q2 – 60%

• Q3 – 50%

• Q4 – 36%

• Annual performance – 50%

Only half of SARs were completed within the required timescale over the year.

By Q4 that had fallen to barely more than one in three.

Those are Sandwell Council’s own figures.

But the performance figures don’t tell us whether the answers are actually any good

And there is another problem.

The performance indicator largely measures whether a response was issued on time.

It doesn’t necessarily tell us whether that response was:

• comprehensive;

• accurate;

• helpful;

• properly researched;

• or based on adequate searches.

A response saying:

“Nil”

on day 19 could count as a successful performance result.

A detailed response on day 21 might count as a failure.

So even when we look at the Council’s performance figures, we are mainly measuring speed.

We are not necessarily measuring quality.

That distinction matters enormously.

Some of the matters I have referred to the ICO have not simply been about delay.

They have concerned whether searches were adequate, whether information really wasn’t held, whether questions had been properly answered and whether additional information existed that should have been identified earlier.

Sandwell knows information governance is a risk

Again, none of this is being invented by people asking awkward questions.

Sandwell Council itself has identified compliance with the Data Protection Act, UK GDPR and Freedom of Information legislation as a strategic risk.

The issue has previously been rated RED on the Council’s Strategic Risk Register.

It was subsequently reduced to AMBER, but it remains an acknowledged governance risk requiring continued action and monitoring.

That matters.

When residents complain about FOI delays, poor responses, inadequate searches or SAR problems, the response shouldn’t simply be:

“We’re receiving more requests.”

The Council’s own documents acknowledge the problem.

The question therefore becomes:

What is being done about it, and is it actually working?

Sandwell has already recognised that it should publish more information

This is perhaps the most interesting part.

Sandwell’s own risk documentation refers to developing a proactive publication website that goes beyond the existing FOI disclosure log.

The idea is simple.

Publish information of public interest before residents have to ask for it.

Improve transparency.

Reduce FOI demand.

Exactly.

That is what many of us have been saying.

Pilots were supposed to take place between February and June 2026.

It is now the end of August.

So where are the results?

What was piloted?

What information was published?

How many FOIs did it prevent?

What changed?

Where can residents see the improvement?

Because if the answer to rising FOI demand is greater proactive transparency, then surely residents should now be able to see the fruits of that work.

And then there is the ICO

This year I have had to make considerably more referrals to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Not just involving Sandwell Council.

My casework has also included matters involving:

• West Midlands Police;

• the Environment Agency;

• safeguarding bodies;

• other public authorities;

• and information rights involving other organisations.

Some complaints have been accepted for investigation.

Others have required clarification.

Some have involved new ICO reference numbers replacing older ones.

In several instances I have had to write to the ICO simply asking:

Which FOI request does this case reference actually relate to?

That says something in itself about how complicated this system can become.

I have now had to build a Master Foundation Document just to keep track of the requests, ICO numbers, superseded case numbers, outstanding actions and what information the regulator still requires.

And I deal with this sort of material regularly.

Imagine being an ordinary resident encountering it for the first time.

The ICO itself has a massive backlog

Unfortunately, once you reach the regulator, matters are not exactly moving at motorway speed there either.

PublicTechnology reported this month that the ICO’s active FOI caseload increased from 1,595 in April 2025 to 4,476 in July 2026.

Annual FOI complaints increased from:

7,639 in 2024/25

to:

10,713 in 2025/26.

More than 12,000 are expected this year.

The ICO has said roughly 400 more cases a month are entering the system than it can deal with.

In evidence to Parliament earlier this year, the ICO said new complaints were taking around eight months simply to allocate in many cases.

Eight months.

Not necessarily eight months to conclude the investigation.

Eight months before somebody may actually be allocated to deal with it.

That is a serious problem for public accountability.

So what does the ordinary resident face?

Consider the journey.

You want to know why your Council made a decision.

First you search the website.

You can’t find the information.

Then you try to work out whether you need:

• an FOI;

• an Environmental Information Regulations request;

• a Subject Access Request;

• or just a normal enquiry.

You submit the request.

You wait.

You receive a response.

Perhaps some questions aren’t answered.

Perhaps information is said not to be held.

Perhaps an exemption is applied.

Perhaps the response is late.

Then you have to request an internal review.

You wait again.

If you still disagree, you prepare a complaint for the ICO.

You need the original request.

The response.

The internal review request.

The review outcome.

The evidence.

The reference numbers.

And you need to explain precisely what you believe went wrong.

Then you may wait months before independent scrutiny begins.

That is not exactly an information highway.

It is starting to look rather more like an endurance event.

The public authority knows what information exists. The resident doesn’t.

This is the fundamental imbalance.

The authority knows:

• which records exist;

• which officers hold them;

• what systems are used;

• where emails are stored;

• which shared drives exist;

• which internal terminology is used;

• and which documents should be searched.

The resident knows none of that.

Yet if the response comes back saying:

“Information not held”

the resident is then somehow expected to decide whether the search was adequate.

How?

They cannot see the systems.

They do not know what was searched.

They do not know which officers were asked.

They may not even know what the document they are looking for is called.

That is why transparency should not depend entirely upon residents becoming experts in information law.

And what about charities and publicly funded organisations?

This is another murky area for residents.

A charity is not automatically covered by the Freedom of Information Act simply because it receives public money.

That is an important legal distinction.

But many charities and community organisations receive substantial public funding, deliver public services or operate from publicly supported facilities.

Residents may understandably ask questions.

Some information might instead have to be requested from the Council or other public authority funding the organisation.

Where personal information is involved, the organisation may also have separate obligations under data-protection legislation and Subject Access rules.

But there is a wider governance point here too.

Just because an organisation can legally avoid answering a particular public question does not necessarily mean that ignoring reasonable questions represents good governance.

If organisations receive substantial public money, transparency should surely be regarded as an asset rather than an inconvenience.

The answer is not simply more FOI officers

If public bodies genuinely want to reduce Freedom of Information demand, the answer cannot simply be hiring more people to answer more requests.

The better answer is:

Publish more information.

Make it easy to find.

Make it searchable.

Make it understandable.

Publish contracts.

Publish grants.

Publish consultation results.

Publish performance information.

Publish project updates.

Publish decision records.

Publish frequently requested datasets.

Publish commissioning information.

Publish governance reviews.

Publish the information residents repeatedly ask for.

And every time an FOI uncovers information of obvious public interest, somebody within the organisation should ask:

Why did this person have to submit an FOI for this?

and:

Should we publish this routinely from now on?

That would be genuine transparency.

Transparency shouldn’t depend upon stamina

That is the heart of the issue for me.

I am persistent.

I will chase.

I will ask again.

I will request an internal review.

I will go to the ICO when necessary.

But public accountability cannot depend upon every resident being willing or able to do that.

Some people will give up after the first poor response.

Others will not know they can challenge it.

Some will not understand the exemptions.

Others will not know the difference between FOI, EIR and SAR.

Many simply will not have the time or energy.

And the result is obvious:

Those who understand the system and are prepared to keep pushing may eventually get answers.

Those who don’t may never get them.

That is not what accessible public information should look like.

So is it an information highway or a dirt track?

At the moment?

Far too often, it feels like the dirt track.

Sandwell says it wants transparency.

The Council’s own documents recognise the need for proactive publication.

Its own risk register recognises information-governance concerns.

Its own performance figures show significant FOI and SAR problems.

The ICO is dealing with an enormous and growing national backlog.

And residents are caught in the middle.

So perhaps public bodies need to stop asking only:

“Why are we getting so many FOIs?”

and start asking:

“Why do residents need to submit so many FOIs in the first place?”

And then perhaps ask one more:

“How many ICO complaints would disappear if we simply answered every question properly the first time?”

Now that really would be progress.

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