Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:51:17 +0100 Subject: Re: Freedom of Information request - FOI internal reviews From: Ganesh Sittampalam To: FOICOMMONS Dear Mr Castle, Would you be able to extend the spreadsheet you already sent to cover the historic requests? Much of the work required to do that would also be needed in complying with the S42 code of practice, so you could kill two birds with one stone. It would be helpful if you could also provide some internal tracking number or identifier so that I could then easily ask for more details of a selected set of requests. Regards, Ganesh -----Original Message----- Dear Mr Sittampalam, I am grateful to you for your email of 30 June. It is clear that your simple request from late May has been overlooked and this is to be regretted. I will not offer excuses other than to say that times have been interesting - and will continue to be so for some weeks to come. I can only apologise for this oversight and look to provide a response and follow up as quickly as possible. Perhaps we could start by exploring further... We have looked at the history of your request on whatdotheyknow.com and have identified your request as follows: "I'd like to know how long it would take to inspect each file to see how long the internal review took, and how long it would take to actually extract the information requested for each case that took longer than 20 days. " Also, section 42 of the FOI code of practice (http://www.foi.gov.uk/reference/imprep/c...) says that you should publish statistics on how successful you are on meeting complaints: have you done this and if so where can I find it? (I did have a look in your publication scheme but couldn't find anything) " In your original request you asked for all Freedom of Information requests made where an internal review has been requested and which took longer than 20 working days to conduct the review, or where the review is still outstanding and 20 working days have elapsed. You asked for the text of the original request and of the internal review request (without the requestor's name), any reasons for the review taking longer than the ICO guidelines, and the relevant dates [submission of the original request, original response, internal review request and, where relevant, internal review response]. Our response provided a summary of around 40 cases dating back to the start of 2008 - in total there have been around 100 reviews. The time consuming part of your request is retrieving and summarising/extracting each request and identifying and retrieving any reasons for the review taking longer than the current ICO guidelines -e.g., looking to see if there is any information held about the time taken to complete each review. In total this is estimated as requiring at least 30 minutes per case. However, even then it is unlikely that from the information held in relation to each request it will be possible to determine why each took the time they did especially when the target given was 30 days. Section 42 of the code of practice states that public authorities should determine their own target times for dealing with complaints and that these should be published. In addition it states that public authorities should publish information as to how successful it is with meeting those targets. Our target times are set out on our website but we do not publish stats about meeting these targets. We will be reviewing our processes when the dust settles. I am happy to explore this with you so that we can identify what might be provided. Yours sincerely, Bob Castle Head of Information Rights and Information Security ------------------------------------------------------------------- Please use this email address for all replies to this request: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/about#officers If you find WhatDoTheyKnow useful as an FOI officer, please ask your web manager to suggest us on your organisation's FOI page. -------------------------------------------------------------------