As most frustrated journalists will tell you, Freedom of Information requests rarely come back promptly.
According to official government guidance, organisations, councils and public bodies should respond to a Freedom of Information Request within 20 working days.
Now, when I asked for details of parking tickets handed to elected members in Liverpool over a five year period I wasn't expecting those full results in 20 days, but the 16 month wait I have faced for this information is symptomatic of a council still struggling to recover from years of problems.
READ MORE: 14 city politicians named in parking probe and their explanations
The same "unacceptable culture" that we have uncovered with today's account of a 'back door' route for councillors to get parking tickets cancelled is the same culture that led to the many grim revelations of the 2021 Max Caller investigation report into the council that resulted in government commissioners being sent in.
It's also a sign that local councils are no longer equipped to carry out this kind of work in a timely basis after a decade of cuts and the loss of thousands of members of staff. Yes this was a complicated request and there were lawyers involved - but many of my colleagues and members of the public have been frustrated for years at the delayed responses to Freedom of information requests from Liverpool Council - in fact it was singled out as a problem area in Mr Caller's inspection report.
Now in the council's defence, this particular response has been made more difficult because of the involvement of lawyers. Ahead of our publication today I was sent an email issued from the Labour Party to those councillors named which said the party's lawyers had been in "constant dialogue" with the council over the matter. It is very likely this was a key reason for the hold up.
The ECHO began investigating claims of an alleged "back door route" for councillors to get out of paying parking tickets in October 2021. Following a complaint made by the city's opposition leader Cllr Richard Kemp, we submitted our initial Freedom of Information requests asking for all the names of any elected members who had seen tickets rescinded between April 1 2015 and December 31 2020, the dates and locations involved and any reasons given for why the fines were thrown out.
For a long time no response was forthcoming, but in January after we told the council of our intention to publish a story regarding this and the lack of response, we did receive a response.
Our initial request had enquired about parking tickets given out to both elected councillors and officers employed by the council. We were told in January 2022 that this scope was too wide for the resources the council had at its disposal. We agreed at this point to narrow the scope to just focus on elected members as this was the best route to achieving a full response.
But that was a year ago and it has taken another 12 months of persistence to get to this result today. While it has taken far too long I am grateful to those officers who have worked hard on this request and getting the information back to me. It is worth mentioning that this involved the officers getting responses from each councillor involved, which may have taken some time.
I think there is one key line in the response which highlights both why this request was so difficult for the council to respond to and just how badly things have been run at Liverpool City Council in recent years.
In its response, the council said that "despite conducting extensive searches of its records, the council has not been able to locate any formal council records detailing why parking services cancelled the 51 PCNs" which were received by elected members. If you or I were to challenge a fine in writing to the council then there would be a record of this and what the result was. The fact there were no records found for these councillor fines speaks volumes about the culture of the council in those years.
It is of course right and proper that we published the full statements and explanations from each current and former elected member alongside today's story. People can make their own minds up about the reasons and accounts given.
But I think the comments from the current chief executive and lead commissioner at the council sum things up for me. Interim Chief Exec Theresa Grant said what we have uncovered is "an example of the unacceptable culture that pervaded parts of the council in the past." Meanwhile Mike Cunningham, who is leading the team of commissioners at the council added: "The information released today shines a light on the poor practices that have been all too common in Liverpool City Council. However, it is information that the public have a right to know."
It might have taken a while but I'm glad that the public now have this information.
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