Statistics FOI/EIR Complaints

The request was partially successful.

Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

Please may I have the following information in relation to the Cardiff office of the ICO.

1. The number of FOI/EIR complaint investigation officers.
The number of open active FOI/EIR complaints currently with each officer.
2. The number of FOI/EIR complaints opened per month to each officer broken down into April, May, Jun, July, August, September, October 2010.
3. The number of FOI/EIR complaints closed per month from each officer broken down into April, May, Jun, July, August, September, October 2010.
4. Confirmation if there is a target number of FOI/EIR complaints that must be resolved by each officer every month? and if so what that target figure is either expressed as a number or as a percentage.

Yours faithfully,

Phil Roberts

Information Commissioner's Office

Link: [1]File-List

13th December 2010

Case Reference Number IRQ0364470

Dear Mr Roberts

Thank you for your recent email in which you have made a request for
information to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Your request is being dealt with in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.  We will respond by 14 January 2011 which, taking
into account the UK bank holidays, is 20 working days from the day after
we received your request.

Should you wish to reply 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

Joanne Crowley

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

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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

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Information Commissioner's Office

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Link: [1]File-List

13th January 2011

Case Reference Number IRQ0364470

Dear Mr Roberts

Further to our acknowledgement dated 13 December 2010 we are now in a
position to respond to your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act.

On 11 December 2010 you requested the following information in relation to
the Cardiff office of ICO:

“1. The number of FOI/EIR complaint investigation officers.
The number of open active FOI/EIR complaints currently with each
officer.
2. The number of FOI/EIR complaints opened per month to each
officer broken down into April, May, Jun, July, August, September,
and October 2010.
3. The number of FOI/EIR complaints closed per month from each
officer broken down into April, May, Jun, July, August, September,
and October 2010.
4. Confirmation if there is a target number of FOI/EIR complaints
that must be resolved by each officer every month? And if so what
that target figure is either expressed as a number or as a
percentage.”

Please find below our response to your questions.

Response to question 1

1. At present we have 3 Senior Complaint Officer’s in the Cardiff office
working on the investigation of FOI/EIR complaint cases. The Full Time
Equivalent (FTE) is 2.8. In addition to the Senior Case Officers we also
have one FOI Team Leader who line manages the Senior Complaint Officers
and has his own caseload. We also have the Assistant Commissioner who does
a limited amount of investigation work (limited generally to requests from
ICO staff) and who has not therefore been included in the stats because it
is a very limited part of her role. Please see below table 1 showing the
number of open cases with each officer at the time of your request. I have
referred to case officers A, B, C and TL for the Team Leader. Obviously
this is a snapshot and each officer’s caseload will vary as cases are
closed and new cases opened. It also varies depending on the complexity of
cases held and whether and officer has been out of office for any reason.

+---------------------------------------+
|Officer |Number of cases |
|----------------+----------------------|
|A |18 |
|----------------+----------------------|
|B |9 |
|----------------+----------------------|
|C |15 |
|----------------+----------------------|
|TL |6 |
+---------------------------------------+

Table 1

Response to question 2

Please see below table 2 showing the number of tasks allocated per month
to each officer. Because case officers don’t “open” cases, and
their involvement can be after the ICO has been processing the cases for
some time, we counted when a task was allocated to an officer in the
Cardiff office. A case opened by an officer or a task allocated to an
officer does not always mean that the same officer will complete the
investigation and close the case. Cases will be opened under the name of
the first officer who may have only acknowledged the receipt of the
correspondence.

+--------------------------------------------------+
|Tasks created|April|May|June|July|Aug|Sept|Oct|Nov|
|-------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---|
|A |1 | | |10 |7 |1 |8 |4 |
|-------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---|
|B |1 |1 |4 | |2 |5 |2 | |
|-------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---|
|C |1 |4 |3 |4 | |4 |4 |8 |
|-------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---|
|TL* |4 |2 |1 |1 |2 |1 |1 |5 |
|-------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---|
|AC** | | | | | | | |1 |
+--------------------------------------------------+

Table 2

* Team Leader

**Assistant Commissioner

Response to question 3

Please see below table 3 showing the number of cases closed by each
officer per month and the total number of cases closed by each officer
over the period specified (from April to November 2010). I have also added
the total closed by all officers per month and the grand total of closed
cases for the specified period.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
|Cases closed |April|May|June|July|Aug|Sept|Oct|Nov|Total|
|---------------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+-----|
|A | | | |1 |4 |3 |4 |3 |15 |
|---------------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+-----|
|B | |3 |3 |5 |1 |2 |2 |2 |18 |
|---------------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+-----|
|C |3 |4 |7 |4 |2 |3 |4 |4 |31 |
|---------------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+-----|
|TL |4 |2 |2 |1 |3 |3 | |3 |18 |
|---------------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+-----|
|AC | |1 | | | | | |1 |2 |
|---------------------+-----+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+-----|
|Total for caseworkers|7 |10 |12 |11 |10 |11 |10 |13 |84 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

Response to question 4

While we do have targets that we set as part of the objectives identified
for individual case officers, unfortunately we are unable to disclose this
information to you. Targets form a part of the Personal Development Review
“PDR” of employees, this is a confidential document held by the Human
Resources department and shared with the relevant managers only. Targets
might differ according to, for example, the experience of the case
officer, and the complexity of the cases awarded to the officer or any
other specific circumstances related to the individual member of staff. As
such individual targets are regarded as personal data to the staff member
which means that it is exempt from disclosure under section 40 (2) of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 by virtue of section 40 (3) (a) (i) of the
same Act.

We have therefore considered whether the disclosure of this personal data
is subject to the exemption at section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 (by virtue of s40 (3) (a) (i)). If the disclosure of the
personal data would contravene any of the eight data protection principles
contained within the Data Protection Act 1998 the exemption at section
40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 will apply.

It is unlikely that it would be within the expectations of the case
officers that their personal targets be put into the public domain, as
these targets are set for internal use within Information Commissioner's
Office only. Due to the relatively small number of officers in the Cardiff
office, we take the view that even when we anonymise the member of staff,
individuals may still be identified. Therefore disclosure would be in
contravention of the first Data Protection Principle. This requires
personal data to be processed ‘fairly and lawfully’. It is therefore
appropriate for us to withhold this information under section 40(2) of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 by virtue of section 40(3)(a)(i). This
section of the Act states:-

“(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is
also exempt information if

a) it constitutes personal data which do not fall within subsection
(1), and

b) either the first or the second condition below is satisfied.

(3) The first condition is –

a) in a case where the information falls within any of paragraphs (a)
to (d) of the definition of “data” in section 1(1) of the Data
Protection Act 1998, that the disclosure of the information to a

member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene –

i. any of the
data protection principles …”

It may be helpful to explain that the aim of our complaint resolution
department is to process casework promptly and thoroughly, measured
against appropriate turnaround targets for complaints. Our complaint
resolution business plans indicates that we aim for Groups to close 1900
cases during the year. We also aim at closing 280 cases approximately by
our regional offices based in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Northern Ireland. Our
aim is to reduce the overall casework load to 800 open cases. We state in
our business plan that we will ensure that there are no cases over 1 year
old by the end of the year and that we will have no more than 100 cases
older than 6 months old by year end. We will then move towards resolving
90% of complaint cases within 6 months.

I hope the above information is of assistance to you.

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 Team
at the address below or e-mail [2][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 Case Reception 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,

Iman Elmehdawy

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

Information Commissioner’s Office

 

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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

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