Issue - meetings

The Committee received a report from the Information Governance Manager regarding an annual report on performance and activity during 2018/19 on transparency issues. This included data protection; requests for information under Freedom of Information (FOI) and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR); and open data.

In addition, the report covered snap shots of projects the council was addressing in line with the Data Protection Act (DPA) and General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018 Regulations.

The Strategic Director said an amended report would soon be published to correct inconsistencies in the first one. She also referred to the amendment sheet which replaced the table on page 115 of the Civic Affairs Agenda Reports Pack.

The Strategic Director amended the recommendation in the report.

·       Withdrawn: The Council needs to review the Data Protection Act and General Data Protection Regulations 2018 to ensure they align with current processes and procedures.

·       New: It is recommended that the Committee note the contents of the report.

The Committee made the following comments in response to the report:

       i.          The number of Freedom of Information (FoI) requests had risen and queried why.

     ii.          Cyber security was an important issue, requested more details in future.

The Strategic Director said the following in response to Members’ questions:

       i.          FoI requests often came from suppliers asking for contract and product information (eg asking when a contract was due to change), prior to the supplier putting in a sales pitch.

     ii.          The public sector was obliged (by Central Government) to respond to FoI requests in order to be seen to be transparent. The Council had some discretion to restrict the information given out if it was commercially sensitive.

   iii.          Responding to FoI requests took time and officer resources. The City Council could liaise with the Local Government Association to see if certain types of FoI requests could be prioritised in future so that information for sales pitches was not treated in the same way as other FoI requests.

   iv.          It was proposed to continue publishing data sets relating to frequently-requested information on the council website to minimise the number of questions being submitted in future.

    v.          Cyber security details (eg certificate of compliance) would be included in the updated officer report.

Unanimously resolved to note the contents of the report.