Angus Council took almost five months to respond to a single request under Freedom of Information (FoI) legislation, new figures have revealed.
The local authority responded to submissions within the stipulated 20 working days in the vast majority of the 2172 cases over the past three years but a handful of those who requested information held by the council had to wait more than double this time before their case was handled.
The longest time taken by officials to respond to a request was 135 calendar days in 2009. In 2008 a submission remained unanswered after 92 days, while in 2010 one query was only processed 118 days after it was received.
Already in 2011 one person has had to wait 58 days before the information they requested could be obtained.
A council spokeswoman insisted that stringent procedures were in place to ensure any requests made under the terms of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act were dealt with as quickly as possible.
However, she admitted that the local authority was focused on improving its record.
“The vast majority of FoI requests are responded to within 20 working days and only a small number of such requests take longer to complete, usually for very specific reasons,” she said.
“We have robust processes and procedures in place to help ensure that FoI requests are being answered within the 20 days and we monitor these processes.
“We are always striving to improve our response times whenever possible.”
The council took more than 20 working days to respond to a total of 263 requests made over the period in question. In a further 77 cases the time taken for the request to be adequately dealt with exceeded 40 working days.
Senior staff also blocked the release of information requested in 482 cases for a variety of reasons. Included in these were that the request constituted a breach of confidence, was under legal investigation or was commercially sensitive.
In addition 106 submissions were refused on the grounds of cost.
Freedom of Information legislation states that local authorities and other public bodies have the right to turn down a request for information if retrieving the details required is expected to cost in excess of £600.