Along with Cllr Radford and other concerned members, Cllr Keaveney will be meeting with the national Information Commissioners’ office to look at ways to improve their response time.

Between 2007 and 2007, out of 1813 applications, 435 went unanswered in time – 23% of all received. But the city says they expect the workload to decrease following the end of the 2008 celebrations, which saw a flurry of enquiries owing to the city’s year in the spotlight.

A spokeswoman for the Campaign for Freedom of Information said: “I think some councils should be more open.

“Cultural change takes a long time, but I think we are moving in the right direction. But a great deal more information could be made public proactively without people having to resort to the Act.”

She added that the failure to respond within the legal deadline was concerning. “It is quite a lot to be missing the required deadline on,” she added.

Cllr Keaveney added: “We are currently working to improve the ‘publication scheme’ to make sure that everything that can be published is.”