Kent County Council FOI Delays: ICO Finds KCC Breached Freedom of Information Law

Kent County Council missed the legal deadline on a request about Sir Roger De Haan’s Folkestone meeting with senior KCC councillors, and the Information Commissioner had to step in. The awkward bit for County Hall isn’t just that this one was late. It’s that late is starting to look less like bad luck and more like a house style.

There are few things more revealing in local government than the speed at which a council answers simple questions about power. Not potholes. Not press releases. Not the solemn nodding that accompanies phrases like “good governance”. Just this: when the public asks for the paper trail, does the council hand it over on time, or does the clock mysteriously wander off into the shrubbery?

On 10 December 2025, Kent County Council received a freedom of information request seeking records about the 9 December Folkestone meeting and visit involving Sir Roger De Haan and a KCC delegation including council leader Linden Kemkaran, cabinet members Paul King and Paul Webb, and Cllr John Baker. The request asked for agendas, briefing notes, attendee lists, notes of discussion, follow-up actions, hospitality records, costs and relevant communications, including official business conducted on non-corporate channels. KCC did not issue a substantive response within the statutory 20 working days. On 7 April 2026, the Information Commissioner issued a decision notice finding KCC in breach of section 10 of the Freedom of Information Act and ordering it to provide a substantive response within 30 calendar days.

That, on its own, would already be embarrassing. A council doesn’t need a crystal ball to know that a request about senior politicians meeting one of Folkestone’s most prominent and influential figures is exactly the sort of thing the public is entitled to see handled properly and promptly. If there was nothing to hide, the obvious administrative move was to answer it on time. Instead, the matter ended up with the regulator.

The larger problem for KCC is that this case doesn’t sit on its own. Its own published performance reports show a long-running failure to hit its FOI/EIR timeliness standards. The council’s target is 92 per cent of FOI/EIR requests completed within 20 working days, with a floor standard of 90 per cent. Yet in Q1 2025/26 the figure was 88 per cent, in Q2 it fell to 84 per cent, and in Q3 it recovered only slightly to 86 per cent. In 2024/25 the run was 75 per cent in Q1, 77 per cent in Q2, 84 per cent in Q3 and 85 per cent in Q4. In 2023/24 it was 70, 77, 77 and 78 per cent. In 2022/23 it was 73, 83, 78 and 75 per cent. Across that whole clean quarterly run, KCC missed not just its 92 per cent target but even its 90 per cent floor every single quarter.

Go back a little further and the picture still isn’t pretty. KCC’s older 2021/22 dashboard-style publications aren’t as neat as the later quarterly reports, but they point in the same direction. The September 2021 dashboard reported the year-to-date figure at 78 per cent. The February/March 2022 dashboard reported 77 per cent year to date. The first quarterly report of 2022/23 then listed the immediately previous quarter as 78 per cent. In other words, this wasn’t a sudden collapse caused by one bad month or one awkward request. By the time the Sir Roger De Haan request landed on the ICO’s desk, KCC had already spent years living below its own standard.

The explanations, meanwhile, have acquired the comforting familiarity of a pub carpet. In one report KCC blamed an ongoing staff resource issue. In another it referred to the significant time needed to redact records. In later reports it cited historically high request volumes, complexity, lack of resources in operational units and delays linked to systems and workflow pressures. By 2025/26, KCC’s own papers were also statED that the “The Information Commissioner’s Office is currently monitoring KCC’s performance.” That isn’t a sign of a smoothly functioning transparency regime. It’s what happens when the warning light has been flashing for so long that people start decorating around it.

And this isn’t the only politically sensitive case to drag its feet across the floorboards. In December 2025, The Guardian reported that Polly Billington MP had accused Reform-run KCC of blocking scrutiny after the council took more than five months to produce evidence behind a claimed £40 million saving. The paper reported that an FOI officer apologised for the delay and said they were “currently waiting for a response from the leader’s office”. KCC rejected any suggestion of a cover-up. But transparency that arrives after five months, out of breath and carrying a note from the leader’s office, doesn’t exactly scream institutional confidence.

Now there is a third example. In separate correspondence seen by Shepway Vox, another FOI request made in June 2025 did not receive its final internal review response until 22 April 2026. That one doesn’t need a graph. It needs a calendar and perhaps a small archaeological team. KCC’s familiar defence also appears again in correspondence on the latest delay: “confirm that the delay was due to an unusually high volume of complex requests received during that period, as well as staff absences, which placed significant pressure on our resources.” Once, that sort of explanation might sound unlucky. Repeated over years, it starts to sound less like an explanation and more like the council’s auto-reply.

And that is the real issue here. Freedom of information isn’t meant to work like a time capsule. Its value lies in showing the public how decisions are being shaped while those decisions still matter. A late answer about a meeting between Sir Roger De Haan and senior KCC councillors is not the same thing as a timely one. A five-month delay while waiting for the leader’s office is not a minor paperwork hiccup. An internal review that staggers over the line ten months later is not a healthy sign of administrative resilience. It’s what a transparency system looks like when it has learned that delay itself can be a kind of answer.

County Hall may insist that each case has its own facts. Fine. But institutions are judged by patterns, not excuses. One late FOI can be a mistake. Two starts to look like a pattern. Three looks very much like a habit. And if KCC wants the public to believe that openness is more than a slogan wheeled out for committee papers, it might begin by answering the public before the Information Commissioner has to come knocking and remind it that the law is not a courtesy note.

The Shepway Vox Team

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