When the Timeline Lapses: What to Do Next

Every reporter who has filed a request has also waited past the deadline for one. It happens for ordinary reasons: an officer is on leave, a file is misplaced between offices, a request lands with someone who has never processed one before. None of that means the request has failed. It means the next document you need to write is a follow-up.

A good follow-up does two quiet jobs at once. It reminds the body of its own obligation without accusation, and it builds a written record that will matter if the matter eventually goes to a review body. Both depend on the same habit: keeping the paper trail complete from the first letter onward.

Start with the record, not the frustration

Open the follow-up by restating, in one or two lines, exactly when and how the original request was submitted, and to whom. This is not filler. It fixes the timeline in writing and makes clear that you are tracking the statutory period rather than simply chasing.

• State the original submission date and method
• Name the specific record still being sought
• Note the response period that has since passed
• Ask for a status update or a written reason for delay

Know when to narrow, and when to appeal

Sometimes a follow-up reveals that the original request was simply too broad to process quickly, in which case narrowing it — asking for one tender file rather than an entire year's procurement record — often succeeds where the wider version stalled. Other times the silence continues, or a refusal comes back with no real justification. That is the point at which a review application becomes the sensible next step, built on the same dated correspondence you have been keeping.

Neither path is a failure of the original request. Both are simply what a lawful process looks like when it does not resolve on the first try.