Swansea Council

The complainant requested information from Swansea Council (“the Council”) about payments made to suppliers of Health and Social Care in the borough. The Council provided a partial response, providing a link and stated the information was available online, which they failed to do within 20 working days. The Council also failed to provide an internal review to the complainant, after their clear dissatisfaction with the Councils response. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Council has breached section 10(1) of FOIA, in that it failed to provide a valid response to the request within the statutory time frame of 20 working days. The Commissioner requires the Council to take the following step to ensure compliance with the legislation.
• The Council must provide a substantive response to the request in accordance with its obligations under the FOIA.
The Council must take this step within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.