Questions are invited from members of the public about the work of the Cabinet.
Notice of any question must be given to Democratic Services by midday on Monday, 8 September 2025. Approximately 30 minutes will be set aside for Public Question Time, if required.
Minutes:
A written question regarding street trees had been received by a member of the public, Paul Brierley, who was unable to attend and as such Members agreed that a written response to his question would be sent.
The following question was asked by a member of the public, Daniel Jacobs:
This question is for Lynne Ridsdale. Given that the Council has recently had a strike against them from the ICO for breaching the Freedom of Information Act from my May Subject Access Request, and we are currently 19 days overdue on my second Subject Access Request, I just wanted to check – is it you who is personally responsible for this breach and do you intend to do anything about it?
Jacqui Dennis, Director of Law and Governance responded that an extension has been applied to the most recent SAR and the deadline response date is 22 September. That extension is to allow officers to make sure they’re collating all the information that has been requested and we will respond within that timescale.
In response to a request for clarification, Ms Dennis responded that as senior officer for this area, she has responsibility and it was her understanding that the extension was applied and the new date was 22 September.
The following question was asked by a member of the public, Ella Partridge:
Mrs Ridsdale another question for you. I note that Liverpool Council recently received an ICO enforcement notice after three strikes. Bury is now heading towards multiple strikes of its own. What concrete steps are you putting in place to ensure that this Council complies with the Freedom of Information Act going forward?
Lynne Ridsdale, Chief Executive, gave assurances that the Council works closely with the ICO, and takes information governance seriously. She apologised for the frustration felt with timescales; the Council processes a lot of data and you have raised a number of complex issues which we are trying to deal with properly and completely. Over the last few years and in partnership with the ICO we’ve implemented more structure around information governance. We have a range of officer leads that pick this up, we have a data protection officer, we have Jacqui Dennis as SIRO (Senior Information Risk Owner), we have established internal boards with frameworks that work across information governance, and we’ve stepped that up significantly over the last couple of years including recent changes where we’ve built in additional governance which is now being reviewed to ensure real-time visibility of our performance. So we are across it, we do our very best, and we will ensure that we get back to Mr Jacobs by 22 September.
The following question was asked by a member of the public, Rebecca Partridge:
Who was the actual ultimate signatory from the Council who signed the Pinfold Lane Library off and when was the title deed signed?
Lynne Ridsdale advised that specifics for that were not to hand but would be emailed to Ms Partridge within 5 working days.
The following question was asked by a member of the public, Ryan Sidle:
Dear Mr O’Brien, against a backdrop of spiralling debt at Bury Council, how can residents have confidence in this Council’s handling of multimillion pound land disposals when it can’t even handle the basic public duties on data access?
The Leader responded that the Council’s debt is not spiralling, it is part of an organised programme of investment in the borough. All of those decisions have been made openly and transparently on a variety of different occasions at both Cabinet and Council, Budget Council in particular, and all of which is under the scrutiny of our external auditors and national bodies. There are no issues around our debt management. Debt has increased, as seen in many Councils, but that has been planned and is deliberately so in order to invest in our areas, grow them, and ensure they are thriving. Where we do have challenges around responding to FOIs or SARs that is, as outlined tonight, part of our improvement efforts to ensure that is done within the timescales and to everybody’s satisfaction. Ultimately though, this Council has had lots of scrutiny over the last few years as we seek to drive improvement aspirations forward and I’m pleased to say that on many occasions the Local Government Association, who have done peer reviews, and others who have looked in on those efforts (not least tonight we will hear about Ofsted’s view of our Children’s Services) we are seeing those improvements. So I hope that residents will have confidence that, whilst there are always ways in which we could do better, that we make mistakes, and we’re not perfect, they can be assured that things are improving here at the Council.