West Yorkshire Police are failing to respond to dozens of Freedom of Information requests within the accepted timescale, the Telegraph & Argus can reveal.

The “backlog” stems from a 60 per cent increase in FOI requests received by the force over the past four years, from 475 in 2005 to 762 so far this year.

At the start of this month, West Yorkshire Police were still drafting responses to 60 requests that had already gone beyond the 20-day legislative deadline, with some responses up to four months late.

West Yorkshire Police said its staff were having to spend more time researching answers to questions that had become “ever-more complex” as people became better educated about how the legislation could be used.

A police spokesman said: “The force has taken a number of measures to redress this issue. Staff are now in place to bring us back on track.

“Already, the numbers of outstanding requests have been reduced and we expect that our backlog will be cleared by early New Year.”

West Yorkshire Police now spend £125,000 a year dealing with FOI requests and that figure looks set to rise when police recruit a full-time FOI administrator to work alongside its two project officers.

“In terms of the cost to West Yorkshire Police, it must be remembered that no additional funding was provided to the police or to any other public body when the legislation came into being,” said the spokesman.

Tom McGhie, chairman of West Yorkshire Police Federation, said: “The public have a right to know what’s going on within the organisation and have a legitimate right to ask questions.

“But sometimes, the amount of work required to respond to these requests outweighs the public good. There should be a balance somewhere along the line because it’s no good if it’s becoming a bureaucratic burden on the police.

“There have been times when the information given to investigative journalists has been very useful and has highlighted serious issues, but a lot of the requests have very little public value.

“We need to review what we are doing and see what can be done to reign it in.”

Mr McGhie said money spent responding to FOI requests could be better used to fund two or three more police officers.

Only the Metropolitan Police and West Midlands Police receive more requests than West Yorkshire Police.

Bradford Council is also receiving more FOI requests than ever – up from 215 in 2005 to 407 in 2008. The Council agreed that requests were getting more complex, but said the trend had not created a backlog or impacted on the length of time taken to respond.