Dear Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman,

How many complaints have you received in the 5 years 2015 to 2020 broken down by each year about the following social security benefits:

Employment and Support Allowance
Personal Independence Payment
Universal Credit

Please also advise how many of these complaints you have accepted for investigation and how many have been upheld by your office broken down by each benefit.

Yours faithfully,

Tim Burch

Dear Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman,

Can you please confirm you received my FOI request and will be replying by the legislative deadline i.e. Friday, 12 March? I did not receive any acknowledgement that my request had been received but it was confirmed that it had been delivered.

Yours faithfully,

Tim Burch

Dear Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman's handling of my FOI request 'Complaints received and upheld about DFC'. I am requesting an internal review for the following reasons.

Although I accept you do not "hold" the information I requested in that you do not publish it, there is no valid reason why you can't retrieve and provide it. I have had FOI requests to public bodies refused previously for this same reason but the ICO has upheld my complaints on such refusals.

The ICO refers to requests which can only be satisfied if the public authority extracts information from the records it holds and compiles these "building blocks" into a list or schedule. The ICO will consider the extent to which public authorities are expected to exercise skill and judgment when selecting the relevant building blocks or manipulating them in some way to provide the information requested.

You have confirmed there are a relatively small number of building blocks (complaints) requiring scrutiny in order to provide me with the information I asked for. The ICO does not regard this as "creating new information" as outlined in your response. Creating information means the information did not previously exist in any shape or form, whereas you have the building blocks available to you as outlined in the ICO guidance.

I would also draw your attention to the legislation regarding fees refusals. The legislation states that £25 per hour is the estimated cost attributable to the time which persons undertaking activity in relation to FOI requests. This includes locating, retrieving and extracting the information requested. Most public bodies allow 24 hours as a reasonable length of time for such activity and the cost limit for activity linked to FOI requests is therefore £600.

If you believe the activity relating to my request would take longer than this and exceed the fees limit, please reduce the years included in my request to bring it under the limit i.e. only provide the information for the last 4, 3 or 2 years accordingly.

Yours faithfully,

Tim Burch

Dear NIPSO,

It has been more than 20 working days since I made my request for an Internal Review regarding this FOI request on 15 March 2021 and I have not yet received a response. If I have not received a reply regarding the outcome of the internal review by Wednesday, 21 April 2021 I will make a complaint to the ICO.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Burch

Dear NIPSO

Can you please confirm if you intend responding to my request for an Internal Review and if so, when I can expect a reply?

Thank you,

Yours sincerely,

Tim Burch

Dear NIPSO,

As you have not replied to my request for an Internal Review, which I made on 15 March 2021, or indicated if you intend carrying one out, I have lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Burch

Dear Mr McGinnity,

Thank you for your letter of 26 May 2021 in response to my request for an internal review of the NIPSO response to my original FOI request dated 12 February 2021. I appreciate your apology and explanation for the delay in replying to my request for the review. I am however, unconvinced the delay had anything to do with the effects of Covid-19 and am of the opinion that NIPSO is deliberately obfuscating over my request for other reasons.

I am also strongly of the opinion that your reason for not providing the information requested i.e. a fees refusal is at best dubious. While you have said you cannot provide the information as to do so would exceed the prescribed cost threshold, you have not explained why that is the case. I can only assume that an organisation whose sole purpose is to investigate complaints about public bodies, would keep records of how many complaints it had accepted for investigation and either upheld or not upheld against large Government Departments.

You have also said that to provide the information for even 1 year would exceed the cost threshold. I cannot accept that this could possibly be the case. The original response to my FOI request advised that in the year 2019/2020 NIPSO had received 96 complaints about the Department for Communities. This would mean NIPSO would have 15 minutes to examine each of these cases and extract the response I am asking for. I base this on the fees limit of £600 at a cost of £25 per hour, which allows 24 hours to search your records, which I assume are centrally held and electronic. The number of complaints received in 2020/2021 was even fewer at 77 and would take even less time to examine.

In view of the above I do not accept that my FOI request should not be answered on the basis of a fees refusal, which you have failed to adequately explain. I will therefore be making a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office as I believe NIPSO is withholding the information I have requested for other reasons.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Burch