Freedom of information defenses

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Information Commissioner's Office should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Information Commissioner's Office,

under freedom of information act

Can you confirm if it is it a requirment of the act that

1 all information requested must be answered within 20 days ?What is the maximum a question can remain unanswered?

2 all information must be answered in the location the question is presented ie on the website "what do they know"
In the interests of public transparancy does the allow any questions to be answered away from a public forum where transparancy is therefore not succesful .

can you confirm
since january 2020 how many complaints to the ico have been made .how many have been upheld in the complainants favour ?

since january 2020 how many section 14 vexticious defences have been presented and how many have been succesful

since january 2020 how many appeals against a succesful s14 vexticious defense have been granted and how many have been succesful

Yours faithfully,

dan prkns
ls10

icoaccessinformation, 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]https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/our-inf...

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.

For information about what we do with personal data see our [2]privacy
notice.

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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References

Visible links
1. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/our-inf...
2. https://ico.org.uk/global/privacy-notice/
3. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-an...
4. http://www.twitter.com/ICOnews

J Roberts left an annotation ()

'1 all information requested must be answered within 20 days? What is the maximum a question can remain unanswered?'

You may be interested in this:

31. Section 10(1) requires a public authority to respond to a request ‘promptly and in any event not later that the twentieth working day following the date of receipt.’ Mr John argued that that set two conditions: (i) the public authority should respond promptly; (ii) and no later than the 20th day. He criticised the Commissioner for not dealing with the promptness issue. That issue depends on when Mr John made his request under FOIA.

37. 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. FOIA is important legislation that imposes obligations on public authorities; they are entitled to take time not only to find the information requested but to ensure as best they can that there is nothing more to be found. It is then necessary to complete the administrative and bureaucratic tasks of presenting the information and obtaining approval for release.'

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

[2014] UKUT 0444 (AAC)

An example of delay:

'31. As a consequence of these delays the MOD has breached section 17(5) as it failed to provide the complainant with refusal notice citing section 14(1) within 20 working days of his request; indeed it took the MOD 464 working days to issue a substantive to this response.'

FS50836693

https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...

The law on 'internal review':

'20. Under the FOIA, there is no obligation for an authority to provide a complaints process(also known as an ‘internal review’)if a requester is dissatisfied with the outcome to an information request. However, it is good practice (under the section 45 Code of Practice) and most public authorities choose to do so.'

FS50890359

https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...

ICO Casework, Information Commissioner's Office

15 February 2021 

Case Reference: IC-88126-S6Y3 

Dear Dan Prkns

Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
through the whatdotheyknow.com (WDTK) website.

The WDTK website was created to help people request information from
public authorities under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) and the
Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs).

The ICO is the regulator responsible for overseeing information rights
legislation. We are also subject to the legislation we oversee.

As a public authority we are subject to the FoIA and EIRs, so if people
want to request information we might hold about our work as a public body,
they can do this through WDTK.

Although part of your correspondence is a request for information we hold,
you also raised other matters with us in our capacity as a regulator. We
do not deal with these other regulatory matters through the WDTK website.

The following extract from your correspondence has been identified as a
request for information we will deal with through WDTK. All other matters
raised in your correspondence should be raised with us directly.

since january 2020 how many complaints to the ico have been made .how many
have been upheld in the complainants favour ?
since january 2020 how many section 14 vexticious defences have been
presented and how many have been succesful
since january 2020 how many appeals against a succesful s14 vexticious
defense have been granted and how many have been succesful

Please visit our website at [1]www.ico.org.uk for information about the
legislation we oversee and to contact us about it.

Please also contact our helpline for any further advice on 0303 123 1113.

Yours sincerely,

Eluned Cook 
Information Access Support Officer 
Information Commissioner's Office

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
T. 0330 414 6810 [2]ico.org.uk [3]twitter.com/iconews
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
For information about what we do with personal data see our privacy notice
at [4]www.ico.org.uk/privacy-notice.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ico.org.uk/
2. https://ico.org.uk/
3. https://twitter.com/iconews
4. https://www.ico.org.uk/privacy-notice

ICO Casework, Information Commissioner's Office

3 Attachments

3 March 2021

Our reference: IC-88126-S6Y3
Dear Dan Prkns

Further to our acknowledgement of 15 February 2021, we can now respond to
your request for information. Please see the attached.

Yours sincerely

Debi Petch
Lead Information Access Officer
Information Commissioner’s Office 
0330 313 1645

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
T. 0303 123 1113 [1]ico.org.uk [2]twitter.com/iconews
Please consider the environment before printing this email
Please be aware we are often asked for copies of the correspondence we
exchange with third parties. We are subject to all of the laws we deal
with, including the data protection laws and the Freedom of Information
Act 2000. You can read about these on our website ([3]www.ico.org.uk).
Please say whether you consider any of the information you send us is
confidential. You should also say why. We will withhold information where
there is a good reason to do so.
For information about what we do with personal data see our privacy notice
at [4]www.ico.org.uk/privacy-notice

References

Visible links
1. https://ico.org.uk/
2. https://twitter.com/iconews
3. https://www.ico.org.uk/
4. https://www.ico.org.uk/privacy-notice

J Roberts left an annotation ()

Appeals received between 01/01/2020 and 10/02/2021 - 11 currently still open

Appeals closed 8

If this means that 19 appeals were received between 1/1/20 and 10/2/21, the figure seems low to me.

J Roberts left an annotation ()

The ICO's response:

'Appeals received   between 01/01/2020  and 10/02/2021 -currently still open 

11
 
Appeals closed between 01/01/2020 and 10/02/2021 & outcomes

8

Allowed by consent order –1
Withdrawn – 1
Refused – 1
Struck out – 2
Allowed – 1
Dismissed - 2

In all but one case, the appellant was the complainant. The tribunal dismissed the one appeal that was brought by a public authority.'

prompted me to ask HMCTS:

'Please provide the number of appeals lodged with you against decisions of the Information Commissioner between 1/1/20 and 10/2/21.'

HMCTS responded:

'There have been 320 appeals lodged against the Information Commissioner decisions with the GRC.'

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/7...