Mayor Watch report:
The Metropolitan Police has been accused of showing a “casual attitude” towards transparency after newly published figures revealed it routinely fails to answer a fifth of Freedom of Information requests on time.
Public bodies are required to answer Freedom of Information requests within 20 working days, however the Met is consistently failing to meet this statutory deadline.
In 2012 its best compliance rate was 85% for June when it received 336 requests, its worst performance came in May when it answered just 73% of the 373 requests received on time. In May 2013 compliance fell to 70%.