Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is under pressure to tackle a backlog of hundreds of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests going back as much as two and a half years.

The Information Commissioner said the force is sitting on around 800 requests which are more than six months old and almost 600 requests which are more than a year old.

Towards the start of this year the commissioner sent a recommendation to GMP after it received more complaints about the force's timeliness than any other force's timeliness over 12 months.

On December 14 the commissioner sent an enforcement notice to GMP after the issue went unresolved. It must clear the backlog by the end of July 24 or it could be held in contempt of court.

Phillip Angell, Head of FOI Casework at the Information Commissioner's Office, said: "In issuing this enforcement notice we are demanding urgent action from GMP in responding to FOI requests.

"Currently GMP has done little to address the backlog. Whilst we recognise an action plan has been put in place and some progress has been made to improve its timeliness since the issuing of the recommendation, we are not seeing the improvement both we and the public need to see at the pace we need to see it."

Under the FOI Act the authorities are obliged to respond to FOI requests within 20 working days but authorities are allowed to apply for an extension if reasonable.

The force said its compliance with this target is up to around 80 per cent over the last four months, almost twice what it was at its low point around four years ago.

Ian Cosh, GMP's Senior Information Risk Owner, said: "GMP takes the enforcement notice issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office incredibly seriously and has an action plan in place, which is already in motion, enabling the force to respond timely to incoming requests, while managing an unprecedented volume of requests in recent years.

"I want to provide the public reassurance I am confident our action plan will result in us managing outstanding requests in a timely manner and maintaining compliance with statutory requirements."

This article was written by Jack Tooth. To contact him, email jack.tooth@newsquest.co.uk or follow @JTRTooth on Twitter.