current response dates in Wheres My Reply Tool
Dear HM Revenue and Customs,
This is a follow up to my previous request at https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r...
Please can you send me a copy of the current raw dates held within the "Where's my reply" tool at https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/guidance/... ?
I would like this to include a list of all the different choices available in the tool and the dates the calculation for each choice is currently based on.
I appreciate that by the time you process this request, what you hold may have changed. It's fine for this to reflect a snapshot at that point in time rather than the actual date of my request, whichever is easier for you.
Yours faithfully,
Ganesh Sittampalam
Our ref: FOI2024/27548
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
Thank you for your request, which was received on 14 March.
Please remember to quote the reference number above if you need to contact
us about this request again.
We aim to respond to all freedom of information requests within 20 working
days. We will either send you the information you have asked for or let
you know why we can't.
If we can't reply by 16 April 2024, we will write to let you know the
reason and when you can expect a response.
Yours sincerely
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam
I am writing to update you on the status of your FOI request and to
apologise for our delay in issuing a response.
In dealing with all FOI requests HMRC works to the standard set by the
independent Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which is to deal with
at least 90% of FOI requests within 20 working days of receipt. While we
meet this target most of time, there are some cases that take longer than
20 days to process (for example, because of their complexity). Your FOI
request is one such case.
I want to assure you that we are still working on your request and aim to
provide a reply shortly. I will update you further should we not be able
to issue our response within the next fortnight.
Kind regards
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear Information Rights Unit,
Please can you conduct an internal review of your failure to provide the information requested within the statutory backstop of 20 working days? The legal requirement is to be prompt, with 20 working days as the outer limit for complex requests. I don't believe the ICO's guidance provides any kind of legal exemption and the delay comes on top of the delays in providing a proper response to my previous request.
Yours sincerely,
Ganesh Sittampalam
Our ref: IR2024/45559
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
Thank you for your request, which was received on 22 April.
Please remember to quote the reference number above if you need to contact
us about this request again.
We aim to respond to all freedom of information requests within 20 working
days. We will either send you the information you have asked for or let
you know why we can't.
If we can't reply by 21 May 2024, we will write to let you know the reason
and when you can expect a response.
Yours sincerely
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
We are writing in response to your request for information, received 14
March.
Yours sincerely,
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear Information Rights Unit,
Firstly, you did not provide a full snapshot in your previous response. For example, just picking the first options in the checker after saying "No" to "Are you an agent?", I get to "Child Benefit" => "Make a new claim for Child Benefit", which is not an item listed in the table you provided previously (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r...)
Secondly, even if the previous table had been complete, I requested an updated version of the data. This would assist in tracking how your backlogs are varying over time.
As I don't believe clarification was actually needed, please could you provide the information I requested without further delay?
Yours sincerely,
Ganesh Sittampalam
Our ref: FOI2024/50481
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
Thank you for your request, which was received on 30 April.
Please remember to quote the reference number above if you need to contact
us about this request again.
We aim to respond to all freedom of information requests within 20 working
days. We will either send you the information you have asked for or let
you know why we can't.
If we can't reply by 30 May 2024, we will write to let you know the reason
and when you can expect a response.
Yours sincerely
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
We are writing in response to your request for information, received 30
April.
Yours sincerely,
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear HM Revenue and Customs,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of HM Revenue and Customs's handling of my FOI request 'current response dates in Wheres My Reply Tool'.
Retrieving the data from the "Wheres My Reply Tool" would require repeatedly entering different dates for each possible option in order to identify the raw data the tool relies on. I don't think this can be considered to be "reasonably accessible".
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,
Ganesh Sittampalam
Our ref: IR2024/63149
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
Thank you for your request for internal review, which was received on 17
May.
Please remember to quote the reference number above if you need to contact
us about this request again.
We aim to respond to all internal reviews within 20 working days. We will
either send you the information you have asked for or let you know why we
can't.
If we can't reply by 17 June 2024, we will write to let you know the
reason and when you can expect a response.
Yours sincerely
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
We are writing in response to your request for information, received 17
May.
Yours sincerely,
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
Please find attached our response to your complaint to the ICO regarding
your information request
Yours sincerely,
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear Information Rights Unit,
Thank you for your email and for sending the table of dates.
My request asked for "I would like this to include a list of all the different choices available in the tool and the dates the calculation for each choice is currently based on."
Although in some cases it's reasonably obvious which paths through the tool each entry in your table is based on, this is not always the case. For example - and this is just one example - I get very different dates for Child Benefit queries when I answer that I'm an agent and when I'm not an agent, and there's no obvious differentiation between the two cases in the table you sent.
Presumably you must hold some kind of mapping between the actual sets of choices presented in the tool and the list in your table for the tool to be able to operate?
Yours sincerely,
Ganesh Sittampalam
Our ref: FOI2024/242393
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
Thank you for your request, which was received on 16 December 2024.
Please remember to quote the reference number above if you need to contact
us about this request again.
We aim to respond to all freedom of information requests within 20 working
days. We will either send you the information you have asked for or let
you know why we can't.
If we can't reply by 17th January, we will write to let you know the
reason and when you can expect a response.
Yours sincerely
HMRC Information Rights Unit
Dear Information Rights Unit,
To be clear I do not consider this is a new request as I believe it was already captured by my existing request.
Yours sincerely,
Ganesh Sittampalam
Dear Ganesh Sittampalam,
We are writing in response to your request for information, received 16
December.
Yours sincerely,
HMRC Information Rights Unit
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Ganesh Sittampalam left an annotation ()
I don't think what HMRC have provided still quite matches what I asked for (for example they have just provided a fairly vague description of how they handle "Agent" queries rather than explicitly listing each option for agents) but I have accepted it in the interests of avoiding yet more back and forth.
I'm not impressed that HMRC have treated this correspondence as three different FOI requests and will probably report in their statistics that two of them were handled on time.