Hove Town Hall, headquarters of Brighton & Hove City Council. Photo: Paul Gillett / Geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0. Taken 5 December 2010; the image identifies the council building and is not a photograph of the current FOI team.
Last updated: 8 October 2026, 1:20pm BST
A Brighton council FOI backlog has prompted a formal enforcement notice from the UK information watchdog, requiring Brighton & Hove City Council to answer overdue Freedom of Information requests and publish a plan to prevent further delays.
The Information Commissioner issued the notice on 21 September 2026. Local figures published on 6 October showed the backlog had reached almost 300 requests in August, including 11 dating from 2025. The date matters: this is an uncovered ongoing accountability issue, not a new notice issued today.
In short
- The Information Commissioner served Brighton & Hove City Council with an enforcement notice on 21 September.
- The official notice says the council had a significant backlog and must respond to requests more than 20 working days old.
- Local reporting put the August backlog at almost 300, with 11 requests left from 2025.
- The council says 56% of the backlog has been reviewed or cleared and that extra capacity and senior oversight are now in place.
- Residents waiting beyond the statutory period can complain to the council and, after its review process, take the case to the ICO.
What the enforcement notice requires
The official Information Commissioner page says the action followed evidence about the council’s performance under the Freedom of Information Act. It requires responses to requests already more than 20 working days old and an action plan addressing the causes of delay.
The council has since published a lessons-learned and improvement plan. A public summary of the enforcement notice does not give residents a single date on which the whole backlog will be cleared, so progress will need to be judged through updated figures rather than promises alone.
Brighton and Hove News reported on 6 October that the August backlog was close to 300 cases and included requests received as far back as April 2025. It also reported that the council had too few staff handling requests, while recruitment, overtime and senior monitoring were being used to improve performance.
What the council says has changed
The council accepts that some information-rights requests were not answered within the required timescale. Its response says 56% of the backlog has been reviewed or cleared, with additional capacity and stronger oversight now deployed.
It also points to rising demand. Since April, the authority says it has received an average of about 200 FOI requests and 75 subject access requests each month. FOI volumes are said to be 41% higher than in 2023, while subject access requests have increased by 136%.
Those are different legal routes. FOI is normally used to obtain recorded information about public services and decisions. A subject access request is for personal information an organisation holds about the requester.
Why the Brighton council FOI backlog matters
FOI requests are one of the few formal ways residents, journalists and community groups can test how decisions were made, what public money was spent and what evidence supported a policy. That is particularly important when the council is making consequential choices on planning, transport and a forecast £23.8 million budget overspend.
A delayed response can arrive after a consultation closes, a committee votes or a service changes. The harm is therefore not only inconvenience. Information can lose much of its practical value when it is supplied too late for residents to use it.
Brighton Locals’ view
The enforcement notice is concerning and appears overdue given the age and scale of the backlog. The council’s recruitment, overtime and senior monitoring are sensible corrective steps, but “reviewed or cleared” is too broad a measure to show how many residents have actually received complete answers.
The council should publish a simple monthly dashboard showing new requests, responses within 20 working days, overdue cases, the age of the oldest request and the number of internal reviews. That would let residents see whether the improvement plan is working without having to submit another FOI request to find out.
What residents need to know
- Check first: search the council’s disclosure log in case the same information has already been released.
- Make a request: use the council’s FOI form or email Freedomofinformation@brighton-hove.gov.uk. Describe the recorded information and date range precisely.
- Keep evidence: save the acknowledgement and note the date the council received the request. The normal statutory limit is 20 working days, although limited extensions can apply.
- If the reply is late or inadequate: complain to the council and ask for an internal review. If that does not resolve the issue, follow the Information Commissioner’s complaints process.
- For your own personal data: use the council’s subject access route rather than FOI.
What to watch next
The key evidence will be a dated reduction in overdue cases, especially the 2025 requests, and a sustained increase in answers delivered within 20 working days. Residents should also watch whether the council publishes regular performance data without being prompted.
Failure to comply with a formal enforcement notice can be certified to the High Court. The immediate test, however, is simpler: whether people waiting for information now receive lawful, usable answers.
Bottom line
Brighton & Hove City Council has accepted that some information requests took too long. The watchdog has now made improvement a legal requirement, and transparent monthly figures are the clearest way to prove the backlog is genuinely shrinking.
Sources and image credit
- Primary source: Information Commissioner enforcement notice summary, 21 September 2026.
- Official guidance: FOI complaints and enforcement powers.
- Secondary source: Brighton and Hove News, 6 October 2026.
- Featured image: Hove Town Hall by Paul Gillett, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.
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