LBWF and its Freedom of Information Act failings: now the Information Commissioner’s Office directly intervenes UPDATED

Past posts have covered LBWF’s increasingly unsatisfactory record in handling Freedom of Information (FOI) inquiries – its delays, illegitimate evasions, ignorance of the legal framework, and so on.

However, at last there is some good news, because the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is to meet with LBWF Chief Executive, Martin Esom, shortly to discuss ‘the numerous [ICO] decision notices that have been highly critical of…[LBWF]FOI practices over the last 12-18 months and what the council need to do to improve their information rights practices and procedures moving forward’.

This of course is an unusual step to take, and is an embarrassment for both the extravagantly paid Mr. Esom and LBWF Director of Government and Law, Mark Hynes, who doubles as the council’s Data Protection Officer.

Our thanks must go to Waltham Forest Echo journalist Michelle Edwards, whose incisive investigative skills and determination to hold LBWF to account have done so much to produce such a promising result.

UPDATE

The letter from the ICO to LBWF which explains why it has arranged a meeting with Mr. Esom is now in the public domain, and well worth a read:

https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/practice-recommendations/2617991/fpr_0918092.pdf

To underline the significance of this development, the last time the ICO took such action was in…2009.