Seven-month delay for information request to Scottish Government longest in 2020

A member of the public was forced to wait more than seven months for the Scottish Government to respond to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, it has emerged.

The Scottish Government forced one person to wait more than seven months for a response to a freedom of information request.

In response to a FOI request published on the Scottish Government website, it showed the longest wait for a response from the Scottish Government in 2020 was 152 working days and 218 calendar days.

This is equivalent to a wait of seven months.

In 2019, the longest waiting period was 81 working days and 119 calendar days or around four months.

The Scottish Government is statutorily required to respond to a request under the Freedom of Information Act within 20 working days or around a month.

Figures showed that responses took longer than the statutory deadline of 20 days to respond to a Freedom of Information request 346 times in 2020, up to mid-November.

The Scottish Government extended the statutory deadline for responses to 60 days in the early days of Covid-19, before reversing the decision.

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