An ICO recommendation told Redbridge council to hit 90% on Freedom of Information requests by March 2026. The council's own figures show 84% that month, falling to 77% by June.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. The Information Commissioner issued a Practice Recommendation against the London Borough of Redbridge on 24 November 2025, finding it had answered only 70.3 per cent of Freedom of Information requests on time between January and July 2025, with 117 requests still overdue, some dating back to April 2024 (page 2) [1]. It set the council a deadline: 90 per cent timeliness and a cleared backlog, both by 31 March 2026 (page 3) [1]. The council's own published performance page says it managed 84 per cent that month, and 77 per cent by June, with no backlog figure published at all [2]. Two further ICO actions in August 2026 found a request stuck between the wrong law and no law for over 100 days, and a separate, unrelated breach of the deadline for issuing a refusal notice. Four documented mistakes: three stars.
The Commissioner's patience had already run out once before this Practice Recommendation was written. He first wrote to Redbridge in August 2025 to raise concerns about "poor engagement with his officers and failure to comply with some decision notices and information notices" (page 8) [1]. The council's reply pointed to a new hire in its Information Governance team. The figures it supplied told a different story: monthly timeliness running at 71, 70, 74, 78, 74, 72, 60 and 64 per cent from December 2024 to July 2025, falling as the months went on, not rising (page 8) [1].
A target the council's own figures say it missed
The Practice Recommendation is specific about what fixing this looks like. Redbridge was to submit an action plan by the end of December 2025, "with appropriate processes put in place to ensure at least 90% timeliness is achieved and the backlog of overdue requests is cleared, both by 31 March 2026" (page 3) [1].
The council's own information request improvement plan page, which states it was written "following a Practice Recommendation from the Information Commissioner's Office" [2], publishes monthly timeliness for 2026. March, the deadline month, shows 206 requests received and 84 per cent answered on time [2]. That is six points short of the 90 per cent the Commissioner required by that date, on the council's own count, not an outside estimate.
Getting worse, not better, after the deadline passed
The council did hit 90 per cent once, in February, with 218 requests received [2]. It did not hold it. April ran at 82 per cent, May at 81 per cent, and June, the most recent month published, at 77 per cent [2]. Three months after the Commissioner's deadline for reaching 90 per cent, the council's own figures put it further from that target than it was in January, before the deadline arrived. The page states only that the council is "committed to improving" and that its Executive Leadership Team is "receiving regular updates" [2]; it does not explain the slide from 90 to 77 per cent, or say when the target will actually be met.
The backlog the Recommendation asked for was never mentioned again
The Practice Recommendation treats timeliness and backlog as two separate obligations: hit 90 per cent on new requests, and separately clear the 117 that were already overdue, both "by 31 March 2026" (page 3) [1]. It is explicit that the council should "provide the Commissioner with monthly updates detailing its progress against its action plan" and "publish these updates on its website... so that there is transparency about the progress the council is making in clearing the backlog of overdue requests" (page 6) [1].
The council's published improvement page does not contain the word backlog, or the word overdue, anywhere. It reports a monthly percentage of new requests answered on time and nothing else [2]. Of the two things the Commissioner told the council to fix and report on, only one is visible to the public a year later. Whether the 117 requests outstanding in July 2025, or whatever backlog has built up since, has been cleared is not stated anywhere this site could find.
Two more cases, four months after the deadline
In August 2026, two further Information Commissioner actions landed against the same council. One concerned a January 2026 request for correspondence about a disputed bollard installation. Redbridge answered it under the wrong law entirely, treating a Freedom of Information request as a subject access request under data protection legislation, and told the requester they were not entitled to their own personal data [4]. An internal review, promised promptly, did not arrive for 109 days; when it did, it confirmed the wrong law had been used but did not say which law should have applied (page 2) [4]. The council then offered three different, mutually exclusive grounds for refusing the request anyway: vexatious, manifestly unreasonable, or exempt as personal data (page 2) [4]. By 7 August 2026 the Commissioner had still had no adequate response to his own questions about the case, and issued a formal Information Notice compelling one, warning that "Information Notices will be issued as standard for the foreseeable future" against this council (page 2) [4].
The second, a Decision Notice issued eleven days later on an unconnected request about the council's data-sharing with an external company, found a plainer breach: the council had failed to issue the correct refusal notice within the statutory 20 working days, a breach of section 17(5) of the Act [5]. Redbridge's own improvement plan promises "updating our templates so information customers understand the decisions we have made" and "keeping the ICO updated with our performance" [2]; both cases fall squarely inside what that plan was meant to fix, four months after its own public figures say the 90 per cent target had already been missed.
Credit where due
Redbridge did not dispute the substance of the Commissioner's findings, and its improvement plan is specific rather than vague: it names concrete steps, centralising request handling, automating case management, reviewing which information is proactively published, rather than only promising to try harder [2]. It did hit the Commissioner's 90 per cent bar at least once, in February 2026, which is more than a bare promise. And it is publishing monthly timeliness figures at all, an unprompted degree of transparency several councils in this site's other Freedom of Information teardowns have not matched.
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| The council must achieve "at least 90% timeliness" by 31 March 2026 (page 3) [1] | The council's own published figures show 84 per cent in March 2026 [2] | The deadline was missed, on the council's own count |
| The council must publish monthly progress "clearing the backlog of overdue requests" (page 6) [1] | The council's published improvement page contains no backlog or overdue-request figure of any kind [2] | One of the Recommendation's two explicit requirements has no visible public record a year on |
| The plan commits to "keeping the ICO updated with our performance and providing the highest quality submissions" [2] | An Information Notice was required in August 2026 because the Commissioner had "encountered continued difficulties in obtaining adequate and timely submissions" on a live case (page 2) [4] | The specific commitment the plan makes is the one a formal notice had to force months later |
| The plan promises updated templates "so information customers understand the decisions we have made" [2] | A Decision Notice the same month found the council breached section 17(5) by failing to issue a timely refusal notice on a separate request [5] | A statutory, procedural deadline was still being missed after the plan addressing exactly this was published |
Verdict
Three stars, from four documented mistakes. None of this shows a council ignoring its regulator: Redbridge responded to the Practice Recommendation, published a named plan, and hit 90 per cent at least once. What its own figures do not show is the thing the Commissioner actually asked for, a sustained 90 per cent by a fixed date and a backlog cleared and reported. Four months after that date passed, two more cases landed showing the same underlying problems, mismatched legal bases, slow internal reviews, missed statutory deadlines, still active. A plan that promises to fix a problem is not the same as evidence the problem is fixed, and on the figures Redbridge itself chose to publish, it is not.
The star score counts four documented mistakes: the council's own published figures show 84 per cent timeliness in March 2026, six points short of the Practice Recommendation's 90 per cent deadline; timeliness then fell further, to 77 per cent by June, moving away from the target rather than toward it; the Recommendation's separate, explicit requirement to publish monthly progress clearing the 117-request backlog has no visible public record anywhere on the council's own improvement page; and two further ICO actions in August 2026, an Information Notice and a Decision Notice, found continuing problems (a request stuck on the wrong law for over 100 days, and a missed statutory refusal-notice deadline) on cases unconnected to the original Recommendation. Four falls in the 4 to 9 band: three stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding that the council's published timeliness figures are inaccurate, or that its improvement plan is not genuinely being worked through; the finding is narrower, that the council's own figures do not support having met the Commissioner's deadline, and that the backlog half of the Recommendation has no public figure to check at all. Checked directly against the ten-page Practice Recommendation PDF (full text), the council's own improvement page (full text), and the two August 2026 ICO notices (full text), all fetched 5 October 2026.
Sources
- London Borough of Redbridge: Practice Recommendation (PDF), Information Commissioner's Office, reference FPR0987703, dated 24 November 2025
- Our information request improvement plan, London Borough of Redbridge
- London Borough of Redbridge, Information Commissioner's Office, FOI regulatory action page
- London Borough of Redbridge: Information Notice (PDF), Information Commissioner's Office, reference IC-515285-G7P7, dated 7 August 2026
- London Borough of Redbridge (IC-413559-X0J4), Information Commissioner's Office, decision notice dated 18 August 2026
- ICO 'names and shames' public authorities over FOI failures, Local Government Lawyer, 4 December 2025