Greenwich Council have been told to "get their house in order" over repeated failures to respond to freedom of information (FOI) requests within statutory deadlines.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will now monitor the council - along with the BBC and Essex Police - over their timeliness in dealing with requests.

It revealed there had been 15 complaints to the office over the council's response times.

The ICO will now examine the timeliness of the three organisations’ responses to requests received between May 1 and July 31.

Failure to show signs of improvement could result in enforcement action.

Deputy Commissioner and Director of Freedom of Information, Graham Smith, said: "We expect the BBC, along with Essex Police and Greenwich Council, to use the monitoring period to tackle these delays and get their house in order."    

In 2011 News Shopper discovered that, since the Freedom of Information Act came into force in 2005, Greenwich Council failed to respond to 39 per cent of the FOI queries it received within the statutory 20 working day requirement.