NHS Forth Valley face court action threat over continued FOI issues
NHS Forth Valley chiefs have been threatened with unprecedented court action over its failure to comply with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.
In a letter addressed to the health board's chief executive Ross McGuffie, the Scottish Information Commissioner David Hamilton is heavily critical of efforts to tackle a continued backlog of late responses - and urges the authority to follow an 'action plan' moving forward.
Mr Hamilton said his office initially opened an intervention into NHS Forth Valley in November 2023 after it reported a failure to respond to 51 per cent of requests within the timeframe of 20 days.
The intervention was escalated in October last year after those performance issues weren't improved and a meeting was then arranged in March where the lack of progress was raised - and extra time given to make improvements.
However, Mr Hamilton says he still remains 'concerned' over the progress made - and has now demanded the health board provide his team with an action plan to respond to an average of more than 90 per cent of requests within the 20 day limit by the end of this year.
A lack of positive action could prompt Mr Hamilton to make the bombshell move of promoting 'enforcement action' against NHS Forth Valley - including a referral to the Court of Session for contempt of court.
In the letter, Mr Hamilton writes: 'This is a highly unusual step, and one that we have never had to resort to in the context of intervention work, but I will have no hesitation to issue an Enforcement Notice if I do not see a significant improvement in FOI performance in the timeframes stipulated.'
Alongside the action plan, he requires the health board to take a series of further steps including a 'detailed strategy' for handling backlogged requests by mid-August - and the backlog entirely eradicated by the end of the year.
Urging NHS Forth Valley to make the appropriate arrangements, Mr Hamilton - head of the group tasked with enforcing FOI legislation - said: 'I hope this serves as the wake-up call that NHS Forth Valley need.
'Their FOI response times over the last 18 months have been terrible.
'There can of course be reasons for glitches in performance, but this has been far too prolonged. It is up to the board to grasp the issues and to properly resource and support its staff in fulfilling these statutory duties.'
In response, an NHS Forth Valley spokeswoman said: 'We fully accept that our performance in responding to FOI enquiries is not where it needs to be and efforts continue to improve local response times and reduce delays.
'A number of additional staff have been recruited to help increase capacity and work is already underway to address the requirements outlined in the Scottish Information Commissioner's letter, including the development of a detailed action plan.
'We are committed to making the improvements necessary and will continue to work closely with the Commissioner's office to keep them updated on progress.'
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