A report into serious failings by Stroud District Council’s out of hours call service last Christmas is being kept from the public eye.

The council provides a routine call-handling and message-taking service for emergency situations and during public holidays for local residents.

These calls relate to tenant matters such as repairs but the service also deals with calls about pollution, noise, flooding, fire and council owned properties such as parks, playgrounds, and also issues such as homelessness.

The council commissioned an investigation into their out of hours service after reports of failures over last Christmas and New Year.

The report has been discussed by councillors behind closed doors. But its details have yet to be made public.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service has requested that the report be released under freedom of information legislation.

However, the council has so far refused to do so. They say the circulation of the information has the potential to compromise the financial and business affairs of the council and third parties.

Councillor Stephen Davies (Con, Hardwicke and Severn) said he was disappointed the council has chosen not to release the report in any form.

He said the problems relate to last Christmas and it is important that the issues are fixed before this year’s festive season.

“I recognise there are commercial concerns but a number of the criticisms are of the council and it does feel like they are trying to hide these,” he said.

A Stroud District Council spokesperson said they are committed to resolving the issues and the problems and the corrective action plan is being acted on.

“Stroud District Council is committed to providing the out of hours service our residents need, which is why, when there were failings we wanted to look at the issues around it more carefully,” they said.

“The findings of this closer look were reported to audit and standards committee on September 28, and a detailed corrective action plan was presented to an open, public session of housing committee on November 2. It is being acted upon, and both committees are being kept updated.

“We recognise that clearly we need to learn from any mistakes which were made and are confident that the steps we are taking will help ensure this does not happen again.

“We are in favour of disclosing as much information as possible, however there are a small number of circumstances where information is exempt.

“In this case, the exemption was applied to avoid the council breaching its contractual obligations with a third party.

“The cross-party audit and standards committee agreed that the report be exempt for this reason.

“Stroud District Council does not seek to hide criticism of itself, as witnessed by the reports presented to audit and standards committee. Where there are challenges and lessons we take these as an opportunity to improve.

“More detail on the action plan presented to Housing Committee can be viewed at: stroud.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=142&MId=1282&Ver=4%20(HC.34)”

The Local Democracy Reporting Service has challenged the council’s position and has requested an internal review of their decision not to release the report.