I won’t rehearse the points I made in previous posts. Enough to say this – the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), in addition to being tasked with regulating Freedom of Information (FOI) law, must also comply with it, and anecdotal evidence suggested a long-standing failure to do so adequately (prior to, as well as during the COVID pandemic). That being the case – to whom should other public authorities look for exemplary guidance? Or put even more shortly – why should public authorities bother with compliance?
I now have some statistics.
I asked the ICO, under FOI, how many FOI cases it had failed to respond to within three months of their receipt (bear in mind that one month is the statutory limit). They have now told me that in 92 cases in the past year they have failed to respond to an FOI request within three months. Some cases are still open – in one, they have failed to reply to a request for 951 days and counting (I don’t know, and am almost beyond caring, whether these are calendar days or working days – it barely matters any more), and five cases are over a year old and still unanswered.
As I said previously, the ICO says that FOI enforcement may be appropriate where there are “repeated or significant failures to meet the time for compliance” and that, when deciding to take enforcement action, the ICO will take into account such factors as “the severity and/or repetition of the breach; whether there is evidence that obligations are being…persistently ignored; whether there would be an educative or deterrent affect; whether it would help clarify or test an issue; and whether an example needs to be created or a precedent set”.
A clearer case for (self-)enforcement action could scarcely be imagined.
Outgoing Commissioner Elizabeth Denham is handing her successor John Edwards a severe problem, both in terms of compliance but also – crucially – in terms of reputation of the office.
The views in this post (and indeed most posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.
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