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Complaints received about lack of 'prompt' responses, informal or formal actions taken

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Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

Over the last year, how many complaints have you received about organisations failing to "respond promptly" to FOIA requests? (a legal requirement entirely separate from the 20-day long-stop limit of last resort which is only for particularly complex cases https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio... ). Responding promptly is "the basic, primary obligation' on organisations, not the 20-day long-stop limit http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.u... )

How many of any such complaints have you addressed informally, and how many formally (section 50?). How many organisations were put on monitoring measures as a result of concerns about failures to 'respond promptly'?

Within practical limits for responding without a fee, could you also indicate whether any internal ICO documents or correspondence in the last year has addressed the issue of how promptly organisations are responding to FOIA requests ('respond' meaning to provide the information requested or to deny holding it).

Yours faithfully,

Nick Nonn

AccessICOinformation, Information Commissioner's Office

Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office. We confirm
that we have received your correspondence.

 

If you have made a request for information held by the ICO we will contact
you as soon as possible if we need any further information to enable us to
answer your request. If we don't need any further information we will
respond to you within our published, and statutory, service levels. For
more information please visit [1]http://ico.org.uk/about_us/how_we_comply

 

If you have raised a new information rights concern - we aim to send you
an initial response and case reference number within 30 days.

 

If you are concerned about the way an organisation is handling your
personal information, we will not usually look into it unless you have
raised it with the organisation first. For more information please see our
webpage ‘raising a concern with an organisation’ (go to our homepage and
follow the link ‘for the public’). You can also call the number below.

 

If you have requested advice - we aim to respond within 14 days.

 

If your correspondence relates to an existing case - we will add it to
your case and consider it on allocation to a case officer.

 

Copied correspondence - we do not respond to correspondence that has been
copied to us.

 

For more information about our services, please see our webpage ‘Service
standards and what to expect' (go to our homepage and follow the links for
‘Report a concern’ and ‘Service standards and what to expect'). You can
also call the number below.

 

If there is anything you would like to discuss with us, please call our
helpline on 0303 123 1113.

 

Yours sincerely

 

The Information Commissioner’s Office

 

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Dear ICO,

Thank you for your automated acknowledgement. However it says "If you have made a request for information held by the ICO...we will respond to you within our published, and statutory, service levels. For more information please visit [1]http://ico.org.uk/about_us/how_we_comply... - where it says "We will respond to your request within 20 working days."

There is a primary separate statutory requirement under the FOIA to 'respond promptly'. 'Respond' meaning to confirm/deny whether the information is held and to provide it if possible. https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio... What information do you hold on why the ICO does not state on that webpage about statutory time to respond that it will respond promptly? In other words why it only includes one of the two statutory requirements on time to respond.

Could you also clarify what information you hold on why the ICO states on that webpage that it will respond within 20 working days, given that there are exemptions in the FOIA meaning that there may not be a statutory requirement to confirm/deny/provide requested information within 20 working days?

Yours sincerely,

Nick Nonn

Dear ICO,

Apologies I also need to add:

within the already linked ICO guidance on time to respond to FOIA requests, it states:

"It would be good practice to acknowledge receipt of requests and to refer to the 20 working day time limit, so that applicants know their request is being dealt with"

Since the ICO is clear that there are two separate statutory time requirements - to respond promptly, and to respond within 20 working days (unless an exemption), I ask on what recorded basis does the ICO guidance on good practice not advise organisations to refer to the 'respond promptly' time limit as well as the 20-day limit.

Yours sincerely,

Nick Nonn

AccessICOinformation, Information Commissioner's Office

Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office. We confirm
that we have received your correspondence.

 

If you have made a request for information held by the ICO we will contact
you as soon as possible if we need any further information to enable us to
answer your request. If we don't need any further information we will
respond to you within our published, and statutory, service levels. For
more information please visit [1]http://ico.org.uk/about_us/how_we_comply

 

If you have raised a new information rights concern - we aim to send you
an initial response and case reference number within 30 days.

 

If you are concerned about the way an organisation is handling your
personal information, we will not usually look into it unless you have
raised it with the organisation first. For more information please see our
webpage ‘raising a concern with an organisation’ (go to our homepage and
follow the link ‘for the public’). You can also call the number below.

 

If you have requested advice - we aim to respond within 14 days.

 

If your correspondence relates to an existing case - we will add it to
your case and consider it on allocation to a case officer.

 

Copied correspondence - we do not respond to correspondence that has been
copied to us.

 

For more information about our services, please see our webpage ‘Service
standards and what to expect' (go to our homepage and follow the links for
‘Report a concern’ and ‘Service standards and what to expect'). You can
also call the number below.

 

If there is anything you would like to discuss with us, please call our
helpline on 0303 123 1113.

 

Yours sincerely

 

The Information Commissioner’s Office

 

Our newsletter

Details of how to sign up for our monthly e-newsletter can be found at
[2]http://www.ico.org.uk/tools_and_resource...

 

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Information Commissioner's Office

31 August 2017

 

Case Reference Number IRQ0696294

 

Dear Mr Nonn

Information request
 
I write in response to your emails of 15 and 17 August 2017 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
 
In your emails you have made the following requests, which I have numbered
for ease of reference.
 
 

 1. Over the last year, how many complaints have you received about
organisations failing to "respond promptly" to FOIA requests?  

(a legal requirement entirely separate from the 20-day long-stop limit of
last resort which is only for particularly complex cases
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...
). Responding promptly is "the basic, primary obligation' on
organisations, not the 20-day long-stop limit
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.u...
)

 

 2. How many of any such complaints have you addressed informally, and how
many formally (section 50?).

 3. How many organisations were put on monitoring measures as a result of
concerns about failures to 'respond promptly'?
 
 4. Within practical limits for responding without a fee, could you also
indicate whether any internal ICO documents or correspondence in the
last year has addressed the issue of how promptly organisations are
responding to FOIA requests ('respond' meaning to provide the
information requested or to deny holding it).

 
Thank you for your automated acknowledgement. However it says "If you have
made a request for information held by the ICO...we will respond to you
within our published, and statutory, service levels. For more information
please visit [1]http://ico.org.uk/about_us/how_we_comply... - where it says
"We will respond to your request within 20 working days."

There is a primary separate statutory requirement under the FOIA to
'respond promptly'. 'Respond' meaning to confirm/deny whether the
information is held and to provide it if possible.
[1]https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...
 
 

 5. What information do you hold on why the ICO does not state on that
webpage about statutory time to respond that it will respond promptly?
In other words why it only includes one of the two statutory
requirements on time to respond.
 
 6. Could you also clarify what information you hold on why the ICO states
on that webpage that it will respond within 20 working days, given
that there are exemptions in the FOIA meaning that there may not be a
statutory requirement to confirm/deny/provide requested information
within 20 working days?

 
 

 7. within the already linked ICO guidance on time to respond to FOIA
requests, it states:

"It would be good practice to acknowledge receipt of requests and to
refer to the 20 working day time limit, so that applicants know their
request is being dealt with"
 

Since the ICO is clear that there are two separate statutory time
requirements - to respond promptly, and to respond within 20 working days
(unless an exemption), I ask on what recorded basis does the ICO guidance
on good practice not advise organisations to refer to the 'respond
promptly' time limit as well as the 20-day limit.
 
Our response
 
I have addressed each of your requests in turn below.
 
 

 1. Over the last year, how many complaints have you received about
organisations failing to "respond promptly" to FOIA requests?
 2. How many of any such complaints have you addressed informally, and how
many formally (section 50?).

 
I can confirm we are likely to hold information within the scope of Q.1
and Q.2 of your request however we are unfortunately unable to provide you
with the information you have requested as to do so will exceed the cost
limit at section 12 of the FOIA.
 
You may be aware section 12 of the FOIA makes clear that a public
authority (such as the ICO) is not obliged to comply with a 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.
 
The information you have requested is likely to sit within our electronic
case management system, which we largely use to track and progress
individual cases. However, this system is not set up to easily provide us
with the type of information you have requested.  Generally speaking this
is not the sort of information we would need for our own day to day
business purposes.
 
The system allows us to search for the cases we have dealt with in a
number of different ways, such as by the unique reference number the case
was given, the name and address of the person who contacted us and the
name of any public authority that has been complained about.  We can also
search for cases on the basis of the broad nature of the complaint, but we
can only search on a limited number of fixed criteria which are structured
around the main sections of the FOIA. We do not have an FOI complaint
category for failing to ‘respond promptly’. The ‘technical breach’ for
this type of complaint will be recorded as ‘s10 time for compliance’.

Therefore, the only way to locate the information you have requested is to
manually review the correspondence on each FOI complaint case where the
‘technical breach’ is recorded as ‘s10 time for compliance’ in order to
determine whether the complaint is about the failure to ‘respond promptly’
or whether it is due to a different breach of section 10.

Having undertaken a search of our electronic case management system for
FOI complaints reported to us that we have completed from 2015/16 and to
date where the ‘technical breach’ is recorded as ‘s10 time for
compliance’, this has returned 3260 cases.

We would estimate that it would take a minimum of 3 minutes per case, with
some cases likely to take much longer, manually review each case. To carry
out these searches for 3260 cases would take at least 163 hours which is
well in excess of the section 12 FOIA cost limit.

I have given some consideration as to how you may be able to narrow the
scope of this part of your request to bring it within the cost limit.

For instance, you may wish to significantly narrow the timeframe you are
asking about. Alternatively if you are interested in section 10 FOI
complaints about a particular public authority, we can search again on the
authority you have specified.
 
 

 3. How many organisations were put on monitoring measures as a result of
concerns about failures to 'respond promptly'?
 

No public authorities have been placed into formal monitoring for concerns
about failures to ‘respond promptly’.
 
 

 4. Within practical limits for responding without a fee, could you also
indicate whether any internal ICO documents or correspondence in the
last year has addressed the issue of how promptly organisations are
responding to FOIA requests ('respond' meaning to provide the
information requested or to deny holding it).

 
No information held.
 
 

 5. What information do you hold on why the ICO does not state on that
webpage about statutory time to respond that it will respond promptly?
In other words why it only includes one of the two statutory
requirements on time to respond.
 

No information held. However, the previous paragraph: ‘Requesting
information from the ICO’ on the webpage you refer to does make reference
to responding promptly. In any event we are satisfied our guidance
([2]https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...)
makes our position on the issue of ‘promptness’ very clear.  
 
 

 6. Could you also clarify what information you hold on why the ICO states
on that webpage that it will respond within 20 working days, given
that there are exemptions in the FOIA meaning that there may not be a
statutory requirement to confirm/deny/provide requested information
within 20 working days?

 
No information held. However, as explained to you in our response to your
previous request, under our case reference IRQ0646141, in this context we
would consider that a response could also be an acknowledgement, a holding
reply, a request for clarification, a public interest test exemption
(which should of course identify relevant exemptions) or even a tweet
directing the requester to a published reply.

 

 7. within the already linked ICO guidance on time to respond to FOIA
requests, it states:

"It would be good practice to acknowledge receipt of requests and to
refer to the 20 working day time limit, so that applicants know their
request is being dealt with"
 

Since the ICO is clear that there are two separate statutory time
requirements - to respond promptly, and to respond within 20 working days
(unless an exemption), I ask on what recorded basis does the ICO guidance
on good practice not advise organisations to refer to the 'respond
promptly' time limit as well as the 20-day limit.
 
No information held. As you note this is a good practice recommendation.
We believe the preceding guidance makes very clear the obligation a PA has
to comply with in terms of the 20 working day limit and the requirement to
respond ‘promptly’.

This concludes our response to your information request. I hope the
information provided is helpful.
 
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
IRQ0696294.

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
Lead Information Access Officer
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
T. 01625 545823  F. 01625 524510  [5]ico.org.uk  [6]twitter.com/iconews
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Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

Thank you for your response. I note that you are satisfied with ICO webpage on statutory time requirements not mentioning the statutory requirement to respond promptly, and satisfied that the ICO's good practice recommendation doesn't mention the statutory requirement to respond promptly, though you do not hold any records on why this is so.

Furthermore you wrote "as explained to you in our response to your previous request, under our case reference IRQ0646141, in this context we would consider that a response could also be an acknowledgement, a holding reply, a request for clarification..."

Could you clarify what you mean by 'in this context' ? Are you treating the statutory time requirement of 'promptness' via a different and less meaningful definition of 'respond' than when dealing with the statutory time requirement of 20 working days, why?

This is suspect because the ICO's own guidance previously referred to states:

https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...

"a general response (such as a holding letter or acknowledgement)...will not be sufficient to comply with the requirements of section 10(1)."

Those requirements of 10(1) are to "comply with section 1(1) promptly and in any event not later than the twentieth working day following the date of receipt".

Section 1(1) being to confirm or deny whether the information is held and provide it if held.

In other words, "respond" under the FOIA, certainly when talking about statutory time limits to respond, has a particular meaning of confirming or denying if the requested information is held, and providing it, (or, obviously, citing an exemption etc).

Could you please clarify whether the ICO follows the ICO's own guidance on the statutory meaning of 'respond promptly', and if so clarify how that is consistent with your twice defining 'respond' far more broadly in response to my FOIA request about the statutory concept of 'respond promptly'.

Yours faithfully,

Nonn

Information Commissioner's Office

5 September 2017

 

Case Reference Number IRQ0696294

 

Dear Mr Nonn
 

I write in response to your email of 1 September 2017.
 
We have previously explained our position on the terminology used in the
guidance in our response to your prior request under case reference
IRQ0646141; I have provided a link to this request here for your
convenience:
[1]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...
 
We are satisfied that ICO’s position on what a public authority is
required to do within the 20 working day time limit is clear and we will
not be revisiting the matter again here.
 
I would also add that the further correspondence you have sent to us is
not a request for information we might hold. It is an enquiry about the
legislation we oversee. We provide a range of advice services for
organisations and for the public. However, we do not provide these through
the WDTK website. 
 
Please visit our website at [2]www.ico.org.uk where you will find a great
deal of advice about the legislation we oversee. You can also contact our
helpline on 0303 123 1113 where a member of our team will be happy to help
you.
 
If you would like to submit your enquiry in writing you should email it to
[3][email address] . We aim to respond to most of the enquiries we
receive within 7 days.
 
Please do not reply to this message through the WDTK website. We make no
commitment to respond if you do.
 
Yours sincerely

Ian Goddard
Lead Information Access Officer
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
T. 01625 545823  F. 01625 524510  [4]ico.org.uk  [5]twitter.com/iconews
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J Roberts left an annotation ()

Judge Jacobs has dealt eloquently with the meaning of the word "promptly" in relation to FOIA applications:

"37.      Dictionaries show that promptly has a range of meanings. Some relate to attitude, such as willingly or unhesitatingly. Others relate to time, ranging from immediate to without delay. It would be wrong to substitute an expression for the language of the statute. It is, though, necessary to interpret that language. The context of section 10(1) is concerned with time rather than attitude, although the latter can have an impact on the former. It is too demanding to expect a public authority to respond immediately. That would be unattainable. In the context, promptly is more akin to without delay. There are three factors that control the time that a public authority needs to respond. First, there are the resources available to deal with requests. This requires a balance between FOIA applications and the core business of the authority. Second, it may take time to discover whether the authority holds the information requested and, if it does, to extract it and present it in the appropriate form. Third, it may take time to be sure that the information gathered is complete. Time spent doing so, is not time wasted. "

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKUT/AAC/...

Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

I'm confused. I asked you to clarify your FOIA response 'in this context' about defining 'respond' as any kind of response, when it comes to the 'respond promptly' statutory requirement. You now say you're satisfied you're clear and see prior FOIA response, which doesn't clarify either.

Yours faithfully,
Nonn

AccessICOinformation, Information Commissioner's Office

Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office. We confirm
that we have received your correspondence.

 

If you have made a request for information held by the ICO we will contact
you as soon as possible if we need any further information to enable us to
answer your request. If we don't need any further information we will
respond to you within our published, and statutory, service levels. For
more information please visit [1]http://ico.org.uk/about_us/how_we_comply

 

If you have raised a new information rights concern - we aim to send you
an initial response and case reference number within 30 days.

 

If you are concerned about the way an organisation is handling your
personal information, we will not usually look into it unless you have
raised it with the organisation first. For more information please see our
webpage ‘raising a concern with an organisation’ (go to our homepage and
follow the link ‘for the public’). You can also call the number below.

 

If you have requested advice - we aim to respond within 14 days.

 

If your correspondence relates to an existing case - we will add it to
your case and consider it on allocation to a case officer.

 

Copied correspondence - we do not respond to correspondence that has been
copied to us.

 

For more information about our services, please see our webpage ‘Service
standards and what to expect' (go to our homepage and follow the links for
‘Report a concern’ and ‘Service standards and what to expect'). You can
also call the number below.

 

If there is anything you would like to discuss with us, please call our
helpline on 0303 123 1113.

 

Yours sincerely

 

The Information Commissioner’s Office

 

Our newsletter

Details of how to sign up for our monthly e-newsletter can be found at
[2]http://www.ico.org.uk/tools_and_resource...

 

Twitter

Find us on Twitter at [3]http://www.twitter.com/ICOnews

 

The ICO's mission is to uphold information rights in the public interest.
To find out more about our work please visit our website, or subscribe to
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Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Information Commissioner’s Office's handling of my FOI request 'Complaints received about lack of 'prompt' responses, informal or formal actions taken'.

Failure to meet duty under the FOIA to help people to understand.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

Yours faithfully,

Nonn

AccessICOinformation, Information Commissioner's Office

Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office. We confirm
that we have received your correspondence.

 

If you have made a request for information held by the ICO we will contact
you as soon as possible if we need any further information to enable us to
answer your request. If we don't need any further information we will
respond to you within our published, and statutory, service levels. For
more information please visit [1]http://ico.org.uk/about_us/how_we_comply

 

If you have raised a new information rights concern - we aim to send you
an initial response and case reference number within 30 days.

 

If you are concerned about the way an organisation is handling your
personal information, we will not usually look into it unless you have
raised it with the organisation first. For more information please see our
webpage ‘raising a concern with an organisation’ (go to our homepage and
follow the link ‘for the public’). You can also call the number below.

 

If you have requested advice - we aim to respond within 14 days.

 

If your correspondence relates to an existing case - we will add it to
your case and consider it on allocation to a case officer.

 

Copied correspondence - we do not respond to correspondence that has been
copied to us.

 

For more information about our services, please see our webpage ‘Service
standards and what to expect' (go to our homepage and follow the links for
‘Report a concern’ and ‘Service standards and what to expect'). You can
also call the number below.

 

If there is anything you would like to discuss with us, please call our
helpline on 0303 123 1113.

 

Yours sincerely

 

The Information Commissioner’s Office

 

Our newsletter

Details of how to sign up for our monthly e-newsletter can be found at
[2]http://www.ico.org.uk/tools_and_resource...

 

Twitter

Find us on Twitter at [3]http://www.twitter.com/ICOnews

 

The ICO's mission is to uphold information rights in the public interest.
To find out more about our work please visit our website, or subscribe to
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Englishman left an annotation ()

The annotation above by someone else about the meaning of 'promptly' is interesting, but the issue here is the meaning of 'respond' when used in connection to 'promptly' as opposed to 'within 20 days'

Quite simply the ICO, or at least their FOIA spokerspersons here, are illegally pretending that 'respond' means something different then, when it simply doesn't.

Information Commissioner's Office

7 September 2017

 

Case Reference Number RCC0699643

 

Dear Mr Nonn

Thank you for your email of 6 September 2017, in which you requested an
internal review of our response to your information request. Please note
the new reference number above which relates to this case review. 
 
We will aim to respond by 4 October 2017 which is 20 working days from the
day after we received your recent correspondence. This is in accordance
with our internal review procedures, a link to these was provided with our
response. 

Yours sincerely

Ian Goddard
Lead Information Access Officer
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
T. 01625 545823  F. 01625 524510  [1]ico.org.uk  [2]twitter.com/iconews
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Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

Please cancel the internal review. Waste of everyone's time because I don't believe for a second you're going to admit that your FOIA officer has, contrary to the law, failed to clarify claims contrary to the law that 'respond' means something different (weaker) when it comes to the statutory requirement to respond 'promptly' than to respond 'within 20 days'.

Yours faithfully,

Englishman

We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Englishman please sign in and let everyone know.