'We are committed to being open and transparent' - Sheffield Council responds to criticism over attempts to block release of emails on controversial tree felling plans

Those involved in the exchanges included Julie Dore, leader of the council, Gillian Duckworth, director legal and democratic services, councillor Bryan Lodge, then cabinet member for environment, John Mothersole, then chief executive of the council and Paul Billington, then director of culture and environment.

The emails related to the planning of Operation Quito, the name given to the policing work around tree felling which was part of a £2.2 billion highways improvement scheme.

Chiefs wrongly put “legally privileged – not subject to FOI” in the subject header of the messages in an attempt to prevent them being released under the Act.

It sparked outrage and there are now calls for an independent investigation to look into the extent of the practice across the council and how it might have affected information from being released.

The authority responded more than a day and a half after being contacted. In a statement, Eugene Walker, executive director of resources, said: “Sheffield Council is committed to ensuring it is open and transparent and believes that access to information helps the public hold local authorities accountable for their actions whilst improving confidence and trust in decision making.

“The Freedom of Information Act provides a number of exemptions that can be applied to information such as personal, legal and commercial information as well as documents that support the policy formulation process.

“The applies these exemptions where appropriate. The exemptions used will always be thoroughly scrutinised by the council’s internal FOI team when handling these requests, who will deem the appropriateness of the exemptions used in any given case.

“In this case, officers marked some emails with the term ‘legally privileged not subject to FOI’ where they considered there might need to be a decision about future disclosure. We accept that, as a result, there were a number of emails that were incorrectly marked, and that were never exempt from release under Freedom of Information law. We are confident that our internal processes uphold the FOI law as set out by the Freedom of Information Act 2000.”

But councillor Douglas Johnson, leader of the Green Party, and others called it a ‘clumsy attempt to withhold information’, said it made it ‘obvious there is something they want to hide’ and that it showed a ‘culture of dishonesty’.

It was revealed when Marcus Combie, street tree activist, only received some of the emails he asked for under FOI which prompted him to ask for an internal review – which was pushed back three times before completion.

The internal review confirmed there were 41 emails missing from the response because they were from the account of ‘someone who had left’.

More importantly, Mr Combie said it highlighted that in just one month from one account there were 20 emails which used the ‘not for FOI’ subject header.

A follow up FOI from fellow street tree activist Justin Buxton, which asked for details on how the request was handled, uncovered a message sent from someone on behalf of the FOI department telling chiefs what they were doing was wrong: “[The emails] were not legally privileged and we cannot declare that something is not subject to FOI.”

A spokesperson for the Information Commissioner said an investigation would need to be undertaken to determine if what officers and councillors did was illegal.