Figures show Hertfordshire residents waiting too long for information held on them by county council

Hertfordshire residents who want know the information that the county council holds about them are waiting too long, according to the latest available data.

Individuals can access and receive a copy of personal data and information an organisation holds about them by lodging a ‘subject access request’ (SAR).

Once this request has been made, information should be made available within one month – although this can be extended to three months if the request is complex.

Latest available data suggests at the end of 2023, the authority was meeting the one month time-scale in just under a quarter of cases.

And it shows some who have lodged SARs with the county council had been waiting in excess of three months.

The data was highlighted in a report presented to a meeting of the council’s resources and performance cabinet panel on Tuesday (April 16).

And according to that report, staff are focussed on those who had been waiting longest.

“The team focuses on clearing the backlog of SARs where people have been waiting for more than three months whilst ensuring new SARs are dealt with within three months,” says the report.

“It expects the next quarter to improve as more staff have been allocated to deal with newer requests.”

The data published in the report focussed on the final three months of 2023, between October and December.

The council’s target is that 90 per cent of SAR applications should receive a full response within a month.