A timeline of an FOI submitted to @BrightonHoveCC Feb 20.
Don't normally tweet things out like that as most FOI officers are usually very helpful especially in local government, but as can see, the delays are extraordinary...

March deadline passes without response.
I get email extending (no reason given) to April 20.
That passes.
Extended again (no reason) to June 10
Reason given after pestering: "earlier internal miscommunication + awaiting the IT email search results."
Send reminder June 8 - ignored

Receive extension again to July 8 (no search results yet apparently)
Send another polite reminder just before deadline - ignored.
Extended again to August 5 (same excuse)
Deadline passed. No explanation of why search not provided despite me asking.

After phone call to FOI office, I receive a request for clarification on August 21 on search terms (which shows they hadn't even started search long before this) - I accepted new reduced terms - new deadline September 3.
Deadline passes.

I get an email extending again to September 22 (no search results yet apparently)
I email them another polite reminder on the 17th.
Deadline passes again.
Despite chasing I receive no response until October 16. You guessed it, another extension (no reason given) until Nov 17

You can't extend past the 20 working days unless you need to do a public interest test, and @BrightonHoveCC should have let me know if they were going to be relying on any such exemption by the original March deadline

The council knows this, and has admitted to me they have breached the act, but also said "we are currently unable to confirm whether any exemption will apply to this request until we are able to review the emails collated (if any are held)."