Current FOI performance

The request was partially successful.

Dear Information Commissioner's Office,

I should be grateful to see any recorded information you have on:
1) What your current internal performance targets are for the 'shelf life' of FOI complaints you investigate (i.e. complaints about any public authority under s. 50 FOIA);
2) The most up-to-date performance levels are against those targets (and in particular, I am interested in what is the average length of time from a complaint being received to:
(a) send a substantive request to the public authority asking for information about how they handled the request; and
(b) to issue a decision notice or otherwise conclude a complaint);
3) Any trend analysis that the ICO holds in relation to the matters in request (2) for the last 5 years;
4) Whether there has been any internal decision or guidance within the ICO to prioritise dealing with section 10 complaint responses since October 2018;
5) If so, any internal correspondence about (4).

To assist your search for 1-3, I understand that monthly performance statistics are sometimes brought to a 'CAD Managers Meeting', but these are minuted in a very high-level way, and so I am looking to drill down behind that.

Thanks very much for your help!

Yours faithfully,

Andy Latham

Information Commissioner's Office

1 Attachment

25 February 2020

 

Case Reference Number IRQ0906135

 

Dear Mr Latham

 

We are now in a position to provide you with a response to your
information request sent via the WhatDoTheyKnow.com website on  
28 January.
 
Your Request
 
“I should be grateful to see any recorded information you have on:
 
1) What your current internal performance targets are for the 'shelf life'
of FOI complaints you investigate (i.e. complaints about any public
authority under s. 50 FOIA);
 
2) The most up-to-date performance levels are against those targets (and
in particular, I am interested in what is the average length of time from
a complaint being received to: (a) send a substantive request to the
public authority asking for information about how they handled the
request; and (b) to issue a decision notice or otherwise conclude a
complaint);
 
3) Any trend analysis that the ICO holds in relation to the matters in
request (2) for the last 5 years;
 
4) Whether there has been any internal decision or guidance within the ICO
to prioritise dealing with section 10 complaint responses since October
2018;
 
5) If so, any internal correspondence about (4).
 
To assist your search for 1-3, I understand that monthly performance
statistics are sometimes brought to a 'CAD Managers Meeting', but these
are minuted in a very high-level way, and so I am looking to drill down
behind that”.
 
 
We have dealt with your request in accordance with your ‘right to know’
under section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), which
entitles you to be provided with any information ‘held’ by a public
authority, unless an appropriate exemption applies.
 
Our Response
 
I can confirm we hold information that falls in the scope of your request.
Please find below information in response to your questions in points 1 to
4.
 
1) What your current internal performance targets are for the 'shelf life'
of FOI complaints you investigate (i.e. complaints about any public
authority under s. 50 FOIA);
 
The ICO’s internal performance targets in relation to the handling of
complaints brought to us under Section 50 of FOIA are as follows: ensure
100% of cases are acknowledged within 10 working days, ensure that 90% of
cases are closed within 6 months, have no cases open over 1 year old.
 
2) The most up-to-date performance levels are against those targets (and
in particular, I am interested in what is the average length of time from
a complaint being received to: (a) send a substantive request to the
public authority asking for information about how they handled the
request; and (b) to issue a decision notice or otherwise conclude a
complaint);
 
Please find enclosed figures taken from the FOI complaint team’s internal
monitoring reports. These tables show the number of FOI complaints (FS50
cases) received and closed, along with the number of cases older than 6
and 12 months. I have provided these for the current financial year.
Please note, we do not hold the equivalent report for January 2020 and
August 2019 appears together with September 2019. Information on our
operational performance in FOI casework prior to this can be found in our
annual reports online [1]here
 
You have requested the average length of time from an FOI complaint being
received to: (a) send a substantive request to the public authority asking
for information about how they handled the request; and (b) to issue a
decision notice or otherwise conclude a complaint).
 
Whilst the information you have requested is likely to sit within our case
management system, this system is not set up to easily provide us with the
type of information you have requested. The only way we could identify the
information you have requested (i.e. when we sent a substantive
consultation to the public authority or issued a decision notice) would be
to manually review the details of each FOI complaint case.
 
Section 12 of the FOIA makes clear that a public authority is not obliged
to comply with an FOIA request if the authority estimates that the cost of
complying with the request would exceed the ‘appropriate limit'. The
‘appropriate limit’ for the ICO, as determined in the Freedom of
Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations
2004 is £450. We have determined that £450 would equate to 18 hours work. 
 
We would estimate that it would take a minimum of 3 minutes per case to
manually check these records, with some cases likely to take much longer.
You will see from the reports provided the number of FOI complaints we
have received in the current financial year. The February 2020 report has
a total of 5,400 received since April 2019. To manually check these
cases would exceed the appropriate limit.
 
However, I can provide you with the average time taken in days from an
FS50 complaint case to be created on our system (‘created date’) to the
date it was finished on our system (‘finished date’) for the time period
September 2018 to end of January 2020. This is 67 days. Information prior
to this is available on our website [2]here  The average number of days
can be calculated from columns D and E on the published datasets. We also
provide the age distribution of casework in our annual reports.
 
This average has been generated from our casework management system and
reflects the data on the date it was extracted and can be subject to
change over time. It should be noted that this figure has been calculated
from the individual cases on our casework management system. It will
therefore include duplicate cases and instances where a complaint may be
assigned a new reference number or have multiple numbers. For example,
where more than one public authority is involved.
 
3) Any trend analysis that the ICO holds in relation to the matters in
request (2) for the last 5 years;
 
See response to point 2.
 
4) Whether there has been any internal decision or guidance within the ICO
to prioritise dealing with section 10 complaint responses since October
2018;
 
I have checked with our FOI complaints team and can advise that there has
been no instruction to prioritise Section 10 cases. Section 10 of FOIA
refers to the time limits for compliance and encompass FOI complaints
brought to us about the timeliness of public authorities in responding to
information requests.
 
As these complaints relate to the time taken to respond to requests,
rather than specific FOIA exemptions, they are simpler to identify,
process and a Decision Notice can be issued more quickly. For these
reasons, Section 10 complaints may appear to have been closed sooner
compared to complaints brought to us under other technical breaches of
FOIA.
 
5) If so, any internal correspondence about (4).
 
See response to point 4.
 
 
This concludes our response to your information request.
 
Complaint and Review Procedure
 
I hope this provides you with the information you require. 
 
However, if you are dissatisfied with your request for information under
FOI and wish to request a review of our decision or make a complaint about
how your request has been handled you should write to the Information
Access Team at the address below or e-mail
[3][ICO request email].

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within 40
working days of receipt by you of this response. Any such request received
after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the
Commissioner.

A copy of our review procedure can be accessed from our website
[4]here
 
Yours sincerely
 
Claire Elliott
Lead Information Access Officer
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
T. 0330 414 6200  F. 01625 524510 
[5]ico.org.uk  [6]twitter.com/iconews
 
For information about what we do with personal data see our [7]privacy
notice. Our retention policy can be found [8]here
 

References

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