South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (‘the Trust’) wrote to the Commissioner in December 2024 and stated that it was experiencing issues with its compliance in handling FOI requests within statutory timescales and that it had a backlog of of requests. Between 1 April 2023 and 31 December 2024, the Trust achieved an average compliance rate of 46.39% for providing responses within 20 working days. Following engagement by his staff with the Trust about the underlying reasons for these failings, the Commissioner has reached the view that the Trust’s request handling practices do not conform to Part 4 of the section 45 Freedom of Information Code of Practice, issued by the Cabinet Office in July 2018 (the Code).