New crackdown on FOI delays

The Cabinet Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence are among public bodies now being targeted by the Information Commissioner's Office because of their bad record of delay in dealing with FOI requests.

The ICO has this morning announced a new intensive monitoring system [113.18KB PDF] it is implementing for public authorities that it says are not meeting the requirement to respond to freedom of information requests on time.

The 33 authorities picked on for their poor performance range across the public sector.

At central government level it also includes the Department of Work and Pensions, the Scotland Office, the Northern Ireland Office, and the Government Equalities Office. There are two police forces, the Metropolitan Police and the British Transport Police. It also features Transport for London and 18 councils, as well as some local NHS bodies.

The ICO's target list has been influenced by the number of complaints about delay it has received relating to particular organisations and also by authorities' own data on their speed of response. Their promptness will now be audited for three months.

This public "name and shame" approach by the ICO represents a significant toughening of its stance for cracking down on the extensive delays in the freedom of information system. The ICO's ability to take this action effectively has been facilitated by the progress it has itself made recently in reducing its own considerable delays.

 

I interviewed the Information Commissioner Chris Graham last November a few months after he took up the role, he told me:

"I don't think the ICO will be listened to unless we are effective and that means being on top of the business. People say 'don't talk to us about deadlines when you're taking forever to do cases.'"

In the past FOI officers have often grumbled about being criticised by the Commissioner over delays when the timeliness of the ICO has frequently been even worse. It looks like Mr Graham now feels that his office's performance has improved enough to give him confidence in taking a harder line with everyone else.

This tension between the ICO and public bodies it scrutinises is illustrated by correspondence between the Cabinet Office and the ICO, which the BBC has recently obtained through an FOI request.

The ICO's concern about the Cabinet Office's extensive delays goes back over a year. Last May its enforcement team complained to the Cabinet Office about numerous instances where FOI requesters had experienced excessive waits, and also about a series of cases where the ICO itself had encountered lengthy time lags while the Cabinet Office dealt with ICO investigations.

The Cabinet Office response to this (which it took them three months to send) included a retaliatory list of examples where the ICO was taking an extremely long time to decide on complaints.

Anecdotal evidence from freedom of information requests made by the BBC suggests that the ICO has indeed identified some correct targets. We have also met particular problems with the Ministry of Defence, the Government Equalities Office, the Metropolitan and British Transport Police, and Islington Council. However, our experience with the Cabinet Office is that the efficiency of its FOI team has improved markedly in the past few months, which may reflect the ICO's pressure already exerted over the past year.

But the Campaign for Freedom of Information is complaining that the list does not include the Ministry of Justice, even though it says this responds to less than 85% of requests on time, one of the ICO's criteria.

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