4 THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER'S
OFFICE
46. Last year we heard that many requesters were
experiencing lengthy delays before receiving responses from public
authorities.[65] We urged
the DCA to work with the Information Commissioner to improve compliance
with the 20 day statutory response deadline, to reduce public
interest time extensions and the time taken for internal reviews.[66]
We heard that the ability of requesters to challenge such delays
was curtailed by the fact that they often had to wait months for
the Information Commissioner to start investigating their complaints.[67]
We expressed concern that resource restrictions could limit the
Commissioner's performance as an independent regulator[68]
and asked the Commissioner to provide us with a mid-year report,
documenting his progress in reducing the number of cases awaiting
attention, together with other performance measures.[69]
47. Last year, the DCA did not provide all of the
additional funding which the Information Commissioner's Office
(ICO) estimated was necessary to clear the backlog of cases and
to establish an acceptable turnaround of new cases. The ICO's
baseline funding for FOI work reduced from £5m in 2005-06
to £4.7m in 2006-07 to take account of a £300,000 efficiency
saving and the DCA provided an additional £850,000, rather
than the requested £1.13m, bringing the total budget for
2006-07 to £5.55m.[70]
The ICO's mid-year progress report, demonstrated that improvements
had been made, both in terms of the number of cases closed and
the quality of decision notices produced, but that the backlog
was reducing slowly:
"We move into the second half of the financial
year knowing that our performance has improved and should continue
to do so. However, the volume of new cases has risen and stayed
nearly 20% above projections. Even with the current level of new
cases, we are now closing more cases each month than we receive.
But we remain acutely aware that we still have a substantial backlog
and that this is not reducing as quickly as planned because of
the higher than expected number of cases arriving each month.
The legacy backlog and the increase in new cases mean that too
many cases are taking — and will continue to take —
too long to resolve."[71]
48. The progress report stated that temporary additional
funding of £750,000 for 2007/08 would enable the ICO to achieve
acceptable service levels by early 2008, but that without this
additional funding, complex cases would take over nine months,
possibly considerably longer, to resolve.[72]
In February 2007, the Commissioner told us that he had eliminated
the backlog of straightforward cases, but that there remained
a backlog of around 600 complex cases awaiting attention.[73]
Nevertheless, the DCA advised the Commissioner, once again very
late in the year, that the ICO would receive only baseline funding
of £4.7m for 2007-08.[74]
49. We are not convinced that the funding of the
ICO is sufficient to enable it to deliver an effective complaints
resolution service. We question whether it is appropriate for
the Ministry of Justice to set the funding levels for the independent
regulator and thereby directly influence its capacity to investigate
complaints. With regard to the proposed new charging regime, the
cost-benefit analysis suggests that no significant additional
resources would be provided to the ICO to enable it to manage
the additional workload predicted in the Frontier Economics review.
This suggests to us that the Government would be content to accept
the consequentially slower complaints resolution process.
50. In our last Report on this subject we concluded
that the relationship between the DCA and the ICO was not working
as effectively as it might. We have not seen any improvement.
We repeat our recommendation made in that Report that the Information
Commissioner should become directly responsible to, and funded
by Parliament.
65 Freedom of Information - one year on, para
78 Back
66
Ibid. paras 79, 82 and 85. Back
67
Ibid. para 52 Back
68
Ibid. para 107 Back
69
Ibid. para 62 Back
70
Ev 28 para 35 Back
71
Information Commissioner's Office, Freedom of Information: ICO
Progress Report, October 2006, pp2-3 Back
72
ICO Progress Report pp 30,31 Back
73
Ev 28 paras 36-37 Back
74
Q49 Back
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