More than 750 Freedom of Information requests are yet to be answered by Sussex Police, a watchdog has warned.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) reprimanded the force for its “woeful” performance.

Freedom of Information (FoI) requests are requests from members of the public for public access to information held by public authorities.

Sussex Police is legally required to respond to these requests within 20 working days but more than two-thirds are not being responded to in time.

Warren Seddon, of the ICO, said: “Sussex Police has let people down with its woeful failure to comply with the law on responding to information requests.

“The commissioner has been clear that public sector leaders should take transparency seriously. Where organisations fail to do this we will take enforcement action so people’s information rights are upheld.”

Sussex Police currently has a backlog of 753 requests that are overdue for a response. Of these, 98 per cent are over three months old, more than half are over six months old.

24 of these requests are over a year old.

The news comes after Sussex Police previously failed to hand over information about officers being investigated for allegations of domestic abuse or sexual assault within the statutory time frame.

Sussex Police took more than 50 working days to hand over the information to The Argus in April last year.

The force said it accepted the findings of the ICO, adding it had “already identified concerns” with response times prior to the enforcement notice.

A spokesman for the force said that they received 35 per cent more requests last year than in 2020.

Information Management Superintendent Jim Collen said: “We absolutely understand the importance of responding to these requests and are committed to providing detailed and accurate information to ensure transparency and to give the public confidence in our policing processes.

“The increase in demand coupled with staffing challenges within the FOI department has led to delays in the force responding to requests within the statutory timeframe.

We acknowledge the need for improvements to be made and have already introduced measures to help clear the current backlog of FOIs and to ensure long-term compliance with the statutory requirements.”

Sussex Police must now respond to all of these requests before September or face further actions.

Other public bodies including South Yorkshire Police were also reprimanded for their failings.