Former mayor Marvin Rees’s official emails and inbox have been deleted, it has been revealed.
But some of the information and exchanges from his eight years in office are still available to the public if they submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, a full council meeting of Bristol City Council was told.
In a confusing reply to questions by local democracy activist Suzanne Audrey on October 8, the authority’s leader Cllr Tony Dyer (Green, Southville) and its top legal officer Tim O’Gara said council policy was that email accounts were wiped 30 days after members or staff left.
They said this was because emails were not the organisation’s recognised storage system but that they were held elsewhere and would be available to share if they were not exempt from publication, such as confidentiality or commercial sensitivity.
Ms Audrey told councillors: “In response to a recent FOI request about meetings the ex-mayor Marvin Rees held in March 2024, the response from Bristol City Council was ‘The information you requested is not held by Bristol City Council. The mayor’s inbox and communications were shut down upon him leaving office’.”
She said: “It should be possible to make an FOI request about meetings and decisions involving the recent elected mayor and to gain a response.
“I hope the leader of Bristol council and relevant officers will look into this and ensure that information is available for those who make relevant FOI requests.
Cllr Dyer, who became council leader following May’s local elections when the mayoral model was scrapped, replied: “The council’s document retention policy applies to all officers and members irrespective of seniority and follows Local Government Association best
accommodate requests for information still held provided it is suitable for disclosure, ie, not exempt.”
By Adam Postans, Local Democracy Reporting Service