Dear Ms Peters Rock

Thank you for your submission below.

I note that you have asked for a response under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

However, it appears that rather than requesting information, you have infact asked for a comment on a number of opinions you have expressed.

As you might be aware, the FOIA provides individuals with the right of access to information - it does not require a public authority to provide an opinion.

You have indicated that you currently have a complaint with the ICO. If you wish to make a submission regarding those matters, I would request that you email [email address], quoting your case Reference number.

Yours Sincerely

Andrew Walsh
Lead Internal Compliance Officer
01625 545 363

show quoted sections

Link: [1]File-List

22 July 2011

Case Reference Number IRQ0406036

Dear Ms Rock

Request for Information

Thank you for your correspondence earlier today, in which you have made a
request for information to the ICO.

Your request is being dealt with in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.  We will respond by 19 August 2011 which is 20
working days from the day after we received your request.

Should you wish to respond to this email please be careful not to amend
the information in the ‘subject’ field. This will ensure that the
information is added directly to your case. However, please be aware that
this is an automated process; the information will not be read by a member
of our staff until your case is allocated to a request handler.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Walsh

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

01625 545 363

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/rad2121D_files/filelist.xml

Link: [1]File-List

19th August 2011

Case Reference Number IRQ0406036

Dear Ms Rock

I am writing further to our email dated 22 July 2011 in which we
acknowledged your request for information to the Information
CommissionerÂ’s Office (ICO).

As previously explained we are treating your email of 22 July 2011 as a
request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the
FOIA).  It is important to understand that requests made under the FOIA
are requests for recorded information, a public authority is not required
to create information in order to respond to a request.

As you have asked a number of questions for your ease of reference we will
deal with each one in turn.

“1. Assuming that every public authority and public company is aware
of the very much delayed response of the Information Commissioner's staff,
when their help is requested, do you consider that you are working within
your legally stated remit?

If not, why not? This is to ask if there is a reason why having waited 12
weeks already, the Information Commissioner now promises that there will
be another 6 to 8 week delay?”

This is not a request for recorded information as you are asking the ICO
to provide its opinion as to whether the ICO is working within its
“legally stated remit”.  For your information the ICO’s
“legally stated remit” is outlined in the legislation which we
oversee (the Data Protection Act 1998, the Freedom of Information Act 2000
etc) and the legislation does not state timescales for the handling of
complaints.  For your information links to the legislation in full
which the ICO oversees can be found on our website ([2]www.ico.gov.uk) via
the following links;

[3]http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...

[4]http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...

In regard to the second part of the above as I understand it you are
referring to an email which you received about the length of time it would
take for your case to be allocated to a case officer.  We do not hold
any recorded information which would answer this question.  However for
your information I have contacted the Team Manager involved and they have
informed me that the “6 to 8 week” was based on their estimation
of how long it would take for your complaint to reach the top of their
teamÂ’s queue.

“2. Is the Information Commissioner's office overloaded with
complaints which it cannot deal with?”
We do not hold any recorded information which would answer this part of
your request.  For general information on the caseload of the ICO
please refer to our Annual Reports;

[5]http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/performan...

“3. Is it a part of the Information Commissioner's remit (public or
otherwise) to deliberately delay dealing with complaints?”

As explained in question 1 above the remit of the ICO is set out within
the legislation which we oversee.  The legislation does not refer to
“deliberately delay dealing with complaints” and we do not hold
any recorded information in regard to this question.

“4. What is the time-frame remit for the Information Commissioner to
deal with complaints?”

The legislation which the ICO oversees does not set out a “time-frame
remit”.  The ICO does however have services standards which are
publically available from our website via the following link;

[6]http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/how_we_wo...

We have not provided you with the services standards in this email as this
information would be exempt under Section 21 of the FOIA as it is
reasonably accessible to you via our website.

“5. Where there is stated to be an urgency, what arrangements are made
to help the complainant in such circumstances?”
In regard to data protection complaints the recorded information which the
ICO holds in relation to this question is in our data protection casework
procedures document which is publically available from our website. 
This document can be found under “procedures” on the following
webpage;

[7]http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/policies_...

For your information page 5 contains the information which you seek. 
To clarify we have not provided you with the actual information in this
email as this information would be exempt under Section 21 of the FOIA as
it is reasonably accessible to you via our website.

In regard to freedom of information, the complaints are prioritised on a
case by case basis and when determining whether it is appropriate to
prioritise a complaint it is considered whether the complaint falls within
any of the following categories:

· Path-finder cases. Resolution of a case clearly involves some
sort of important principle or precedent which would impact on other
cases.

· High-profile cases. The case has featured prominently in the
public domain – media or political – and there is widespread
awareness that an ICO decision is awaited. The prominence will usually
need to be national, though exceptionally a local or regional case may
qualify.

· Time-critical cases. There is an obvious and objectively valid
case for urgency – e.g. a pending issue or enquiry which may turn upon
the availability of the disputed information.

· Grouped cases. The case obviously sits alongside one or more
cases already under active consideration and can be resolved at the same
time as the rest of the group.

The above information is all the recorded information which the ICO holds
in regard to prioritising complaints.

“6. During the years of operation of the Information Commissioner's
Office, what is the average delay time before complaints are dealt
with?”
In regard to this part of your request as you may be aware the ICO uses an
electronic case management system in order to administer the complaints
and enquiries which we receive.  Unfortunately however the ICO’s
reporting tool is only able to extract the information which you seek for
the last two financial years.

In answer to this part of your request please refer to the table below
which is broken down by case type and shows the average number of calendar
days taken from creation to finish the casework, from creation to
allocation to an officer, and from allocation to finish;

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |Days from |Days from creation to |Days from |
| |creation to|allocation |allocation to|
| |finish | |finish |
|--------------+-----------+-------------------------------+-------------|
|2009-2010|PECR|45 |41 |5 |
| |----+-----------+-------------------------------+-------------|
| |DP |103 |73 |30 |
| |----+-----------+-------------------------------+-------------|
| |EIR |175 |67 |109 |
| |----+-----------+-------------------------------+-------------|
| |FOI |174 |68 |107 |
|---------+----+-----------+-------------------------------+-------------|
|2010-2011|PECR|43 |39 |4 |
| |----+-----------+-------------------------------+-------------|
| |DP |124 |100 |25 |
| |----+-----------+-------------------------------+-------------|
| |EIR |127 |47 |81 |
| |----+-----------+-------------------------------+-------------|
| |FOI |106 |46 |61 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

For your information the abbreviations are as follows;

PECR – Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations 2003

DP – Data Protection Act 1998

EIR – Environmental Information Regulations 2004

FOI – Freedom of Information Act 2000

“7. In respect of no 6 - above - what is the longest time it has
taken, for the Information Commissioner's staff to begin to deal with a
complaint?”
Unfortunately the ICOÂ’s reporting tool can only bring back averages
(as in part 6 above) and is unable to obtain information on what the
longest time taken to deal with a case is.

However the ICOÂ’s Annual Reports do contain information in regard to
the oldest complaints at the time of the report which are available from
our website;

[8]http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/performan...

We have not provided you with the actual information in this email as this
information would be exempt under Section 21 of the FOIA as it is
reasonably accessible to you via our website.

“8. In respect of No 6 - above what is the shortest time taken to
begin to deal with a complaint?”
As explained above the ICOÂ’s reporting tool is unable to obtain
information on what the shortest time taken to begin to deal with a case
is.

However it is possible that the shortest time taken to begin to deal with
a complaint could be one day.  Examples of when this may have occurred
could be where the complaint is outside the jurisdiction of the ICO or
where the complainant has provided insufficient information for the ICO to
consider their complaint.

“9. By an annual reckoning over the years of operation, how many
complaints brought to the Information Commissioner, have never reached a
satisfactory conclusion? By 'satisfactory' is meant, that the complaint is
resolved according to legislation.”

We do not hold any recorded information which would answer this part of
your request.  This is because all the complaints which the ICO
receives are resolved according to the legislation.

“10. How many staff are employed in the Information Commissioner's
office to deal with the investigation of public Complaints? This will need
to be broken into years of operation, to show the rise or fall of staff
numbers.”
As you may be aware the ICO has been in existence (under different names)
since 1984.  As you have not provided a timescale we have provided you
with four years of information in answer to this part of your request. 
For your information the [9]History of the ICO section of our website
provides some details on numbers of staff during the early years of
operation.

For your information the ICO restructured some of its internal departments
in 2010.  Prior to the restructure the departments which handled
complaints made to the ICO and the numbers of staff and their full time
equivalent (FTE) are as follows;

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Department |Number at 31 March|Number at 31 |Number at 31 |
| |2008 |March 2009 |March 2010 |
|-------------------+------------------+----------------+----------------|
| |No. |FTE |No. |FTE |No. |FTE |
|-------------------+--------+---------+----------+-----+----------+-----|
|Customer Service |29 |27.2 |45 |43.9 |48 |46 |
| | | | | | | |
| | | |(+4 temps)| | | |
|-------------------+--------+---------+----------+-----+----------+-----|
|Casework and Advice|33 |32.1 |34 |31.83|29 |26.93|
|-------------------+--------+---------+----------+-----+----------+-----|
|FOI operations |41 |37.9 |35 |33.7 |41 |37.9 |
| | | | | | | |
| | | |(+3 | |(+2 | |
| | | |secondees)| |secondees)| |
|-------------------+--------+---------+----------+-----+----------+-----|
|Regulatory Action |12 |11.3 |12 |11.5 |13 |12.5 |
|Division | | | | | | |
|-------------------+--------+---------+----------+-----+----------+-----|
|Regional offices |4 |4 |12 |12 |11 |11 |
|(those who handle | | | | | | |
|complaints) | | | | | | |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

To clarify as part of the restructure Customer Service is now called First
Contact and the Regulatory Action Division is now called Enforcement. 
The departments Casework and Advice and FOI operations have merged to
become Complaints Resolution.  The Complaints Resolution figures also
now include those staff in our regional offices who handle complaints. 

The structure which we are currently using is shown in the table below and
shows the number of staff who handle complaints to the ICO;

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Department |Number of staff as at 31 July|Full time equivalent|
| |2011 |(FTE) |
|---------------------+-----------------------------+--------------------|
|First Contact |60 |55.5 |
|---------------------+-----------------------------+--------------------|
|Complaints Resolution|86 |79.42 |
|---------------------+-----------------------------+--------------------|
|Enforcement |26 |23.9 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

“11. Re no 10 - above - what size caseload was it envisaged they would
have?”
In answer to this part of your request please refer to the ICOÂ’s
Business and Corporate Plans which contains some estimates in regard to
numbers of complaints;

[10]http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/plans_and...

We have not provided you with the actual information in this email as this
information would be exempt under Section 21 of the FOIA as it is
reasonably accessible to you via our website.

In addition to the information referred to above we also hold an
Operations Directorate strategy 2010-2013 which also contains estimates
for numbers of complaints.  For your information the current
departments listed above in question 10 are part of the Operations
Directorate.  In answer to your request we have attached the relevant
extracts from the strategy document.  For your information First
Contact is part of Customer Contact.

“12. Re no 10 - above - what size caseload do they actually have?”
The ICOÂ’s casework handling performance is publically available on the
ICOÂ’s website via the link below;

[11]http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/performan...

We have not provided you with the actual information in this email as this
information would be exempt under Section 21 of the FOIA as it is
reasonably accessible to you via our website.

“13. What are the Information Commissioner's staff empowered to do,
should a public authority just refuse to deal with them adequately?”

In answer to this part of your request, information on the ICOÂ’s
enforcement powers under both the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the
Data Protection Act 1998 are publically available from our website via the
following two links;

[12]http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...

[13]http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...

To clarify we have not provided you with the actual information in this
email as this information would be exempt under section 21 of the FOIA as
it is reasonably accessible to you via our website.

“14. Re question 13, if there are sanctions which the Information
Commissioner can employ, how often have any sanctions been employed
- and against which authorities? It would also be useful if it is stated
how often such sanctions should, legally, have been employed.”
Firstly it is important to understand that the remit of the ICO does not
set down how often the ICOÂ’s enforcement powers should be used.

In regard to Data Protection all the Monetary Penalty Notices which have
been issued since that power came into force are available on the data
protection “taking action” webpage (the link to which is
above).  Likewise all the undertakings and enforcement notices which
the ICO has issued since January 2010 are available on the same webpage,
along with recent prosecutions.

In regard to freedom of information the “sanctions” which have
been employed by the ICO and the organisations involved, this is available
from the promoting openness “taking action” webpage, the link to
which is in 13 above.  For your information the ICO’s website also
has a page on “Monitoring compliance” of public authorities in
relation to FOIA, this can be accessed via the following link;

[14]http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...

The ICOÂ’s Annual Reports also contain information on the action which
the ICO has taken and can be viewed via the following link;

[15]http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/performan...

As this information is reasonably accessible to you via our website, we
have not provided a copy in this email as it would be exempt in accordance
with section 21 of the FOIA.

“15. Where extremely long delays are made in beginning to investigate
complaints which have been brought to the Information Commissioner, what
sanctions can be employed against the Information Commissioner's
Office?”
In answer to this part of your request the ICOÂ’s website contains a
section on what individuals can do if they are unhappy with the service
which they have received from the ICO;

[16]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/satisfi...

Once the individual has exhausted the ICOÂ’s case review and service
complaints procedure they can take the matter to the Parliamentary and
Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), however complaints must be made through
their MP.  Further information can be found via the following link to
our website;

[17]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/satisfi...

“16. Re question 15 - above - how often and under what circumstances
have such sanctions been employed - and by whom?”

In regard to service complaints made to the ICO we have conducted a search
of our system for service complaints cases in which the primary reason for
the service complaint has been filled in as “undue delay”.  In
answer to your request in the last two years (31 July 2009–31 July
2011) the ICO has received 261 such complaints.  Of these complaints 30
were not upheld and 231 were either upheld or partially upheld.  For
your information service complaints about delays will usually be made by
those who have brought a complaint to the ICO about a public
authority/data controller.

In regard to complaints made to the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman (PHSO) about the ICO in relation to “long delays”, we do
not hold the number of such complaints which the PHSO has received. 
This is because the PHSO does not have to tell the ICO when it receives a
complaint.  If the PHSO does tell the ICO about a complaint as you will
appreciate it is not always about delays.  As explained above all
complaints to the PHSO have to be made through the individualÂ’s
MP. 

I trust that the information provided in this email is of use to you
however if you are dissatisfied with the response you have received and
wish to request a review of our decision or make a complaint about how
your request has been handled you should write to the Internal Compliance
Department at the address below or e-mail
[18][email address]

Your request for internal 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.

If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your
request or review 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 legislation.  To make such an application, please
write to the First Contact Team, at the address below or visit the
‘Complaints’ section of our website to make a Freedom of
Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations complaint online.

 

A copy of our review procedure is attached.

Yours sincerely

Joanne Crowley

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/rad4C792_files/filelist.xml
2. http://www.ico.gov.uk/
3. http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...
4. http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...
5. http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/performan...
6. http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/how_we_wo...
7. http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/policies_...
8. http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/performan...
9. http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/our_organ...
10. http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/plans_and...
11. http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/performan...
12. http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...
13. http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...
14. http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/prom...
15. http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/performan...
16. http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/satisfi...
17. http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/satisfi...
18. mailto:[email address]