Greater Manchester Police (GMP) must clear the backlog of hundreds of Freedom of Information (FOI) Act requests – some years old – or find itself in contempt of court.
So says Britain’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is today issuing an enforcement notice against the force based in North West England, the third largest in the country with more than 8,000 officers.
The cop shop has 850 FOI requests to process, including 580 made more than 12 months ago, with the oldest submitted over two-and-a-half years ago.
Under the FOI Act, public authorities are allowed to take up to 20 working days to file a response to a request, according to the ICO’s regulations.
