FOI internal reviews

Dear Mr Sittampalam,

Thank you for your email dated 26 April 2009 and received on 27 April.

Your request will be dealt with promptly and we shall endeavour to
provide a response by 27 May 2009.

If you have any queries about your request, please contact me.

Mandy Kelly
Freedom of Information Assistant

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Dear Mr Sittampalam,

I refer to your request for information of 27 April 2009, which is shown
below.

You have asked for information in relation to all internal reviews which
have taken more than 20 days to complete, including the text of the
original request, the text of the request for an internal review and any
reasons for the review taking longer than the ICO guidelines.

We estimate that there have been approximately one hundred requests for
internal reviews where the internal review may have taken over 20 days
to complete. Unfortunately due to the need to extract from each file
the text of the original request, the text of the request for the
internal review and any reasons for the length of time which the review
took, we estimate that it would take us over the costs threshold to
extract this information. Although we rely on the exemption in section
12 in relation to the information which we are unable to provide, we do
hold some of this information in more readily accessible form in
relation to the more recent years. I am therefore able to enclose a
table showing internal review requests since January 2008 where these
have taken over 20 days. You will see that the table also includes a
summary of the information requested in each case, but this will not be
the actual text of the request in all cases. It also includes the dates
of both the original requests and the request for internal review.

You might also like to be aware that although the Freedom of Information
Act does not set a specific time limit for conducting an internal
review, we set an internal target of 30 days for completion of such
reviews. However depending on the nature of the request and the
information held it is sometimes necessary to take longer. We are
however reviewing our processes in the light of the guidance issued
earlier this year which suggests that responses should be given within
20 days, or 40 days for more complex cases.

You may, if dissatisfied with the treatment of your request, ask the
House of Commons to conduct an internal review of this decision.
Requests for internal review should be addressed to: Freedom of
Information Officer, Department of Resources, House of Commons London
SW1 OAA or [House of Commons request email]. Please ensure that you specify the
nature of your complaint and any arguments or points that you wish to
make.

If you remain dissatisfied, you may appeal to the Information
Commissioner at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Bob Castle
Head of Information Rights and Information Security
House of Commons

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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

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Mr Sittampalam

Thank you for your email dated 23rd July requesting us to extend the
spreadsheet already sent to you, to cover the historic requests.

We will look into the practicalities of doing this and get back to you
as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Bob Castle
Head of Information Rights and Information Security
Department of Resources

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Dear Mr Sittampalam,

Thank you for your email.

Please find attached as requested, historic information relating to
internal reviews. I have also attached a copy of the table previously
sent you to which I have added reference numbers.

I hope these are helpful.

Mandy Kelly
Freedom of Information Assistant
House of Commons

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