Bristol City Council FOI Delays: Inside The 12-Month ICO Backlog The Council Relies On.
FOI compliance sits at 71–76%. A national backlog does the rest.
Guess what. Ask Bristol City Council something it does not want to answer. It says no.
So. You complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Then you wait, because that queue is now running at twelve months, at least.
Now. Bristol City Council did not build that queue. It has, however, already shown exactly how to stand in it and let the clock do the work a straight answer would have done in twenty working days.
The Mechanism, In Short.
You may have noticed the shape of that already. Refuse. Wait. Repeat. It works because the waiting isn’t yours to explain — it’s the regulator’s.
The ICO’s own 2025/26 annual report tells you why the wait is real. Over 10,000 FOI complaints landed on its desk that year. That is a rise of more than 40%. How much of that backlog is Bristol’s alone is worth asking — neither the ICO’s figures nor the council’s own paperwork break it down.
Resolution times across the regulator’s wider casework fell sharply in the same year — one key measure alone dropped from 98% to 69%. A backlog that size does not clear itself in a fortnight.
The ICO has admitted as much itself, in its own words: it simply has not had the resources to keep pace with an intake it did not see coming.
Oh. And, by the way. Before you ask. The ICO does not publish an official queue-length figure. Twelve months is the estimate of people who track its casework closely — a reasonable one, given a 40% rise in complaints and a regulator that has just told government, in writing, that it does not have the resources to handle what is landing on its desk.
Notice what that leaves sitting on the table. Every council in the country has the same option in front of it now. Refuse the request. Absorb the complaint. Let somebody else’s waiting list do the stalling for you.
By the time you finish this sentence, that queue still has not moved. The requester gets nothing. The council gets a year of silence with somebody else’s name on the delay.
What Bristol Already Admits.
This would be a national story with a passing Bristol mention. Notice, though, what the council’s own paperwork already shows: the same pattern, dated, signed off by its own audit committee.
A second ICO enforcement notice landed on 27 August 2025. This time it was Subject Access Requests. FOI compliance across 2024 to 2026 sat at 71 to 76%, against a 90% target — figures set out in the council’s own 28 July 2026 Audit Committee pack.
“No significant improvement since the previous review.” That is Internal Audit’s own verdict, not mine.
You’ll have spotted the trick before I even say it. The old backlog did clear, on paper. 231 down to 14. A second enforcement notice arrived anyway.
The council’s fix, on its own audit committee’s own paperwork, is a “service review… underway.” Three of the four red-rated findings run to December 2026.
A review is not a result. A review is a way of getting paid to look busy while the clock does the actual work of making a resident give up.
The Quote That Says It Better Than I Can.
I saw Joanna Booth‘s post on X, quote-tweeting Martin Rosenbaum, who had flagged the ICO taking a more assertive line with government over FOI funding since John Edwards’ departure. I copied it into a WhatsApp group I am in this week, and here is what I wrote back, verbatim, before I had time to make it sound more respectable.
“Time to engage the services of an official BCC medium type person. Maybe everyone who submits an FOI request should be afforded the opportunity of a free tarot reading instead.”
I stand by it. A tarot reading gives you an answer inside the hour. That is roughly as reliable as “service review… underway,” and considerably faster.
The Correspondence That Writes Itself.
Stay with this one. It gets stranger by the reply, and you’ll want to see exactly where it turns.
From: John Langley To: FOI Case Officer, Information Governance Team, Bristol City Council Subject: Freedom of Information request — status of FOI request ref. 76099231
Dear Bristol City Council,
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide all correspondence, internal tracking system entries, and case notes relating to the current status of my Freedom of Information request, reference 76099231, submitted on 14 July 2026 and now unanswered.
Yours faithfully, John Langley
From: Information Governance Team To: John Langley Subject: RE: Freedom of Information request — status of FOI request ref. 76099231
Dear Mr Langley,
Thank you for your request, received 14 August 2026. This has been logged as a new Freedom of Information request, reference 76004412, and will be answered within 20 working days in line with the Act.
We note that your request asks about the status of an earlier request. To confirm that status, the case officer will need to review the correspondence held on file, which is itself the subject matter of your request. We are therefore unable to comment on the status of 76099231 within this response, as doing so before the new request has been formally processed could be considered pre-emptive disclosure.
Yours sincerely, Disclosures Team
From: John Langley To: Information Governance Team Subject: RE: RE: Freedom of Information request — status of FOI request ref. 76099231
Dear Bristol City Council,
To be clear, I have now submitted a Freedom of Information request (76004412) asking about the status of a Freedom of Information request (76099231), and been told that answering it requires processing it as a separate Freedom of Information request. Please confirm whether a further request will be required to establish the status of this request.
Yours faithfully, John Langley
From: Information Governance Team To: John Langley Subject: RE: RE: RE: Freedom of Information request — status of FOI request ref. 76099231
Dear Mr Langley,
We can confirm that request 76004412, concerning the status of request 76099231, is being handled in the usual way. Under section 12 of the Act, we are entitled to refuse a request where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit. Establishing the status of 76099231 requires cross-referencing three case management systems that do not share a common reference field, and our initial assessment is that this exceeds the 18-hour threshold.
We would welcome a narrower request. For example, you may wish to ask only for the status of request 76004412, which is a more contained enquiry.
Yours sincerely, Disclosures Team
From: John Langley To: Information Governance Team Subject: Freedom of Information request — status of FOI request ref. 76004412
Dear Bristol City Council,
Please provide the current status of Freedom of Information request 76004412.
Yours faithfully, John Langley
From: Information Governance Team To: John Langley Subject: RE: Freedom of Information request — status of FOI request ref. 76004412
Dear Mr Langley,
Thank you for your request, received 14 August 2026, now logged as reference 76004978. We are pleased to confirm this has been passed to the relevant service area and will be answered within 20 working days.
Yours sincerely, Disclosures Team
This message and any attachments are confidential and may be privileged.
From: John Langley To: Information Governance Team Subject: Suggestion re: resourcing of FOI requests 76099231, 76004412, 76004978
Dear Bristol City Council,
Given that establishing the status of one Freedom of Information request now requires submitting a second, and establishing the status of that requires a third, I would like to propose an alternative to cross-referencing three case management systems that do not share a common reference field.
Engage a professional tarot reader on a sessional basis. The advantages, as I see them, are as follows.
A reading takes under an hour, comfortably inside the section 12 cost limit, where your current process has already exceeded the 18-hour threshold twice without answering anything. A tarot reader does not require the outcome of one enquiry before beginning the next, unlike your Disclosures Team, and so cannot generate the kind of recursive backlog currently in evidence across references 76099231, 76004412, and 76004978. And a reading, wrong or right, is at least an answer, which puts it one ahead of where we currently stand.
I appreciate this falls outside the normal scope of an information request. I raise it because the normal scope does not appear to be working.
Yours faithfully, John Langley
From: Information Governance Team To: John Langley Subject: RE: Suggestion re: resourcing of FOI requests 76099231, 76004412, 76004978
Dear Mr Langley,
Thank you for your suggestion. As this relates to a proposed change in service delivery rather than a request for recorded information, it does not fall within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and no response is required within the statutory timescale.
Your comments have, however, been logged and will be considered as part of the ongoing service review.
Yours sincerely, Disclosures Team
From: John Langley To: Information Governance Team Subject: RE: RE: Suggestion re: resourcing of FOI requests 76099231, 76004412, 76004978
Dear Bristol City Council,
Thank you for confirming that my suggestion has been logged as part of the ongoing service review. To understand what, precisely, it has been logged against, could you confirm the following:
What is the ongoing service review — its formal name, remit, and Terms of Reference?
When did it start, and against what date is “ongoing” being measured?
What specifically is its role in relation to references 76099231, 76004412, and 76004978?
Who sits on it, and what relevant qualifications or experience they hold, in either freedom of information law or tarot?
Yours faithfully, John Langley
From: Information Governance Team To: John Langley Subject: RE: RE: RE: Suggestion re: resourcing of FOI requests 76099231, 76004412, 76004978
Dear Mr Langley,
Thank you for your request, received 14 August 2026, now logged as reference 76005560.
We can confirm that the service review is an internal governance mechanism established to review services. Its Terms of Reference are currently under review as part of a wider review into review structures, and will be finalised once that review reports.
Regarding a start date, “ongoing” is not tied to a fixed date within our rolling continuous-improvement methodology, and this is therefore not information we hold in recorded form for the purposes of the Act.
Regarding its role in relation to your specific references, we are unable to disaggregate individual case references from the review’s overall scope without disclosing methodology that remains commercially sensitive at this stage.
Regarding qualifications, staffing of internal reviews is a matter of internal HR record and falls outside the scope of this request. For completeness, we can confirm that no member of the review team currently holds a professional tarot qualification, though this has not been formally assessed.
We trust this addresses your request in full.
Yours sincerely, Disclosures Team
From: John Langley To: Information Governance Team Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Suggestion re: resourcing of FOI requests 76099231, 76004412, 76004978, 76005560
Dear Bristol City Council,
Thank you for confirming that the ongoing service review is itself the subject of a review into review structures. To understand what, precisely, that review has been logged against, could you confirm:
What is the review into review structures — its formal name, remit, and Terms of Reference?
When did it start, and against what date is “will be finalised once that review reports” being measured?
What specifically is its role in relation to the service review referenced in your reply of 14 August 2026, and in turn to references 76099231, 76004412, 76004978, and 76005560?
Who sits on it, and what relevant qualifications or experience they hold, in either the reviewing of reviews or tarot?
In the spirit of your own rolling continuous-improvement methodology, I do not require this information in recorded form if none exists. Confirmation that none exists, recorded in some form, will suffice.
Yours faithfully, John Langley
From: Legal and Democratic Services To: John Langley Subject: Freedom of Information Act 2000 — Section 14: Vexatious Requests
Dear Mr Langley,
We write further to your correspondence concerning references 76099231, 76004412, 76004978, and 76005560, and your most recent enquiry regarding the review of the review referenced within them.
The council has responded to each of your requests within the statutory framework. The position remains as previously advised: the original enquiry has been logged, cross-referencing between systems is ongoing, the service review is underway, and the review of that review will report in due course.
Section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides that a public authority need not comply with a request assessed as vexatious. Having regard to the volume and pattern of the correspondence set out above, the council will regard any further requests of this kind as falling within that provision.
We would ask that further correspondence be limited to substantive new requests for recorded information. The council reserves its position regarding correspondence assessed as repetitive or designed primarily to test process rather than obtain information, and may decline to respond further where it considers this appropriate.
Yours sincerely, Legal and Democratic Services Bristol City Council
From: John Langley To: Legal and Democratic Services Subject: RE: Freedom of Information Act 2000 — Section 14: Vexatious Requests
Dear Bristol City Council,
Noted, and for the record before this correspondence closes: is the review of the review of the service review currently ongoing, complete, or itself vexatious?
Yours faithfully, John Langley
Mail Delivery Subsystem
Delivery has failed to these recipients: foi@bristol.gov.uk
404 Not Found The requested resource is no longer available at this address.
You may have noticed you were reading that as though it were real. None of it was. It read like it could be. That was the point.
Four references. Two enforcement notices. One review, under review, awaiting a review of its own.
I asked the question their own reply had propagated. The front door was gone.
Three Questions, Asked Plainly.
Is it practical for a council to treat a national regulator’s backlog as an informal extension on its own obligations? Evidently yes, since it is already happening.
Is it logical that the fix for “no significant improvement since the previous review” is another review? No fix has ever arrived by scheduling more paperwork about the fix.
What is the likely outcome if nothing changes? A resident asks a question this month, gets refused, and does not find out whether the council was right to refuse it until around August 2027. By then the road is reopened, the contract signed, the decision made. The information is still true. It has simply stopped being useful. If at all. Mind.
The Bottom Line.
You know how this reads by now, so I’ll keep it short. Ask Bristol City Council something it does not want to answer, and here is what happens. It says no.
You complain. You wait twelve months, at least, for a regulator that is drowning in its own queue. Somewhere inside that wait, a review of a review gets logged as progress, on the same audit committee paperwork that already uses the word “review” four times in one sentence.
The Almighty Gob went looking for the front door on this one. What we found was a 404.
That is not a joke I have written for you. Nobody had to invent this. A council does not need to lie to say nothing. It just needs to outlast you, and the law, as written, lets it. That is not a loophole Bristol City Council found by accident. That is the twelve-month backlog it relies on.
© 2026 John Langley aka www.thealmightygob.com