Complaints about the DfE to the Parliamentary Ombudsman

Dear Ms Jago

Thank you for your recent email. A reply will be sent to you as soon as
possible. For information, the departmental standard for correspondence
received is that responses should be sent within 20 working days as you
are requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2011/0030604

Thank you.

Central Allocation Team

Public Communications Team

Tel: 0370 0002288
www.education.gov.uk

show quoted sections

Dear Ms Jago

Thank you for your email dated 11 April requesting how many complaints
about the Department were referred to the Parliamentary Ombudsman during
the period 2004 to 2011, and details of the complaints that were upheld
during the same period. I have dealt with your request under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 ("The Act").

Under section 21 of the Act, the Department is not required to provide
information in response to a request if it is already reasonably
accessible to you. The first part of the information you requested is
available on the annual reports and resource accounts page of the
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman website at:
[1]www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/publications/annual-reports.

To help with your search on the website, you will need to look for
Department for Education and Skills (DfES) for the period from 2004/05 to
2006/07. From 2007/08 the Department was re-titled to the Department for
Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). From 12 May 2010 we changed our
Departmental name to the Department for Education (DfE) however statistics
are not available for 2010/11 until later in the summer. You may wish to
check the website periodically to check for further updates.

I am unable to respond to the second part of your question about
complaints being upheld by the Ombudsman. This information is not provided
on the Ombudsman website, details of cases upheld would have been dealt
with by the relevant policy area in the Department as records are not
held centrally. Therefore, the Department is unable to confirm whether it
holds the information on cases upheld you have requested, because it
estimates that the cost of searching across the whole Department to
determine whether it holds the information would exceed the cost threshold
applicable to central Government. This is -L-600 and represents the
estimated cost of one person spending 3 1/2 working days in determining
whether the Department holds the information.
Under section 12 of the Act the Department is therefore not obliged to
comply with your the second part of your request and will not be
processing it further. I have considered ways in which your request might
be narrowed or limited in order to reduce the cost of complying with it.
However, due to the way in which the information would be held, I do not
consider that the Department would be able to provide the information you
have requested without exceeding this cost limit.

You may wish to contact the Parliamentary Ombudsman directly regarding
your question of how many complaints were upheld. They can be
contacted at: [2]http://www.ombudsman.org.uk.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please
remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you should
make a complaint to the Department by writing to me within two calendar
months of the date of this letter. Your complaint will be considered by
an independent review panel, who were not involved in the original
consideration of your request.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint to the
Department, you may then contact the Information Commissioner's
Office.
Yours sincerely

Eileen Kelly
Public Communications Unit
[3]www.education.gov.uk

As part of our commitment to improving the service we provide to our
customers, we are interested in hearing your views and would welcome your
comments via our website at [4]www.education.gov.uk/pcusurvey

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2011/0030604.
To contact the Department for Education, please visit
[5]www.education.gov.uk/contactus

show quoted sections

Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/pub...
2. http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/
3. http://www.education.gov.uk/
4. http://www.education.gov.uk/pcusurvey
5. http://www.education.gov.uk/contactus