number and outcome of complaints made about the behaviour of ICO officials

Dudley Jones made this Freedom of Information request to Information Commissioner's Office This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was refused by Information Commissioner's Office.

Dear Information Commissioner's Office,
1) In the last 3 years, how many complaints have there been about the behaviour of ICO officials by members of the public?
2) of these complaints, how many have been investigated and adjudicated upon by a manager against whom the complaint has been made?
3) How many of the total number of complaints made have been successful/upheld?
4) Of those that were not upheld, how many complainants appealed against the ICO decision to the GRC?
5) How many of those appeals were successful/upheld?
6) How many of those who requested their appeal be heard by a Tribunal hearing were allowed to go forward with their appeal to a Tribunal hearing?
7) How many of those appeals heard by a Tribunal hearing were successful?

Yours faithfully,

Dudley Jones

Information Access Inbox, Information Commissioner's Office

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Information Commissioner's Office

30 April 2019

 

Case Reference Numbers IRQ0839122, IRQ0833834, IRQ0834212

 

Dear Mr Jones

Information request
 
I write in response to your emails, received via the whatdotheyknow.com
website (WDTK) of 31 March, 1 April and 24 April in which you submitted a
number of requests for information to the Information Commissioner’s
Office (ICO). Your requests have been dealt with in accordance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
 
Your request
 
Your request via WDTK of 1 April reads:
 
“Is it approved ICO policy for a manager to hear and adjudicate on a
complaint made about himself or herself?”
 
Your request via WDTK of 31 March reads:
 
“Can you tell me how many complaints have been made in the last 3 years by
ordinary members of the public about the behaviour of ICO officials?
 
Of this number how many have been resolved or been upheld by the ICO 'in
house'?
 
Of those not resolved internally, how many complaints have then been
referred to the GRC? Of that number how many of those were upheld?
 
And how many applications to have the case heard by a Tribunal were
successful?
 
And how many applications to have the case heard by the Tribunal were
refused?”
 
Your request via WDTK of 24 April reads:
 
“1) In the last 3 years, how many complaints have there been about the
behaviour of ICO officials by members of the public?
2) of these complaints, how many have been investigated and adjudicated
upon by a manager against whom the complaint has been made?
3) How many of the total number of complaints made have been
successful/upheld?
4) Of those that were not upheld, how many complainants appealed against
the ICO decision to the GRC?
5) How many of those appeals were successful/upheld?
6) How many of those who requested their appeal be heard by a Tribunal
hearing were allowed to go forward with their appeal to a Tribunal
hearing?
7) How many of those appeals heard by a Tribunal hearing were successful?”
 
Our response
 
In this instance, we are refusing your request under section 14(1) of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
 
This refusal has been made having carefully considered the ICO’s published
guidance on the application of section 14 FOIA:
 
[1]https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...
 
We do have a full response explaining our reasons – however, we don’t
think it would be appropriate for us to communicate this to you via the
WDTK website. Please contact the Information Access Team at the following
address: [2][email address] confirming a personal email or
postal address and we will provide a copy to you.
 
Finally, we should inform you that as we are relying on section 14 (1), we
will not, in reliance on section 17 (6), provide any further
acknowledgements or refusal notices in response to any further requests.
 
Review Procedure

If you are not satisfied that your request for information has been dealt
with correctly, please write to the Information Access Team at the address
below, reply directly to this email (with the reference number contained
within the square brackets left intact), or email us at
[3][ICO request email], quoting the reference number one of
the above reference numbers.

Your request for a 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.

Ultimately if you are not satisfied that your request for information has
been dealt with correctly you have a further right of appeal to this
office in our capacity as the statutory complaint handler under the
relevant legislation.  To make such an application, please write to our
Customer Contact Team at the address below, or visit the ‘Report a
Concern’ section of our website.
A copy of our review procedure is available here:
[4]https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/p...
 
Yours sincerely
 
Ian Goddard
Information Access Service Manager, Risk and Governance Department
Corporate Strategy and Planning Directorate
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
T. 0330 4146823  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
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References

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