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3. Home Office
ENF0224204
Audited Complaints
FS50222047 18/08/08 I unknown N/A N/A Late response. ICO I s1, s10 Closed
chased, not clear when (CST)
---quot;.;--.,.--,' tésponse was
provided.
FS50219884
IR issue
PIT extension
4. Home Office
ENF0224204
Audited Complaints
FS50213108 I T9476/8 I 08/05/08 I 03/06/08 I 21/06/08 108/08/08 i I R took 33 working
days, I s45(IR) (unallocated
I Open
complaint
FS50207609 I 126/04/08 123/09/08 I I I PA claims it did not s1,s10, Closed
receive request and (CST)
responded after ICO
prompting.
.. FS50202693 I T8991/8 28/03/08 I 22/05/08 Not
submitted
Late response- I s1, s10.
request not processed
under FOI,
Closed
(CST)
IR issue
PIT extension
5. Home Office
ENF0224204
Audited Complaints
British Union for I FS50202112 10/10/07 I 28/11/07 21/01/08 Slightly late response. Open
the Abolition of No clear enforcement (unallocated
Vivisection issues. complaint)
FS50198733 I T28261/07 I 14/11/07 I 08/02/08 11/02/08 07/04/08 Late response (58 s1,s10, Open
working days). (unallocated
complaint)
IRissue
PIT extension
7. Home Office
ENF0224204
Audited Complaints
.. i FS50197511 18631 113/12/07 118/01/08 119/01/08 107/03/08 i working long IR (35
Slightly days). 1 s45(IR) i (unallocated
Open
complaint)
-- 1 FS50193290 18527 129/11/07120/12/07
FS50192544I T28512/7 116/1110i,tJ30/01/07
121/12/07 104/02/08 I No obvious issues. I
Open
1 (unallocated
I
complaint)
IN/A IN/A i Initial resbonsetook I s1, s10,
IR issue
PIT extension
9. Home Offce Fol Complaint/Home Ofce Reference 9419
Complainant:
1 November 2008
AppendixM. Email from lan Lister furter Delaying the Internal
Review
11 July 2008
tP quot;quot;
H'om:e :Offce
Information Rights Team
Shared Services Directorate
2 Marsham Street, London SW1 P 4DF
Switchboard 020 7035 4848
E-mail: Info,Accsscæhomeoffce.gsi.gov.uk Website: ww.homeoffce.gov,uk
Our Ref: 9419
Date: 11th July 2008
I write further to our telephone conversation last week and to your email of the 7th July 2008, sent to
myself and my colleague Oliver Lendrum. Please allow me to extend my apologies for the fact that i
have not been able to acknowledge your request for an Internal Review before now.
I have been allocated your request for an Internal Review as an independent offcial of the Home
Offce who was not involved in answering your original request.
The Home Offce aims to complete your review and provide you with a response within 40 working
days from the date we received your request. Therefore, we aim to have provided you with a full
response by the 30th August 2008, I wil include all the findings of the procedural review of this
request in with this response,
As I mentioned in our phone conversation last Wednesday, our Internal Review wil only cover the
areas of your requests that have handled under the Freedom of Information Act. It wil therefore not
cover any of the responses to questions that have been answered by Mr, Knight and his colleagues
as quot;normal ~usinessn enquiries. We will however cover whether or not we feel any of these questions
should have been answered under the Act and, if they were not, why.
If you have any queries regarding the handling of this request or would like to discuss the substance
of your request with, please feel free to contact me at your convenience.
Page 24 of 31
10. Home Offce Fol Complaint/Home Ofce Reference 9419
Complainant:
1 November 2008
.,k,.y-, .. :,,/,j!', .,
lan Llster
Information Access Consultant
Information Rights Team
.i':,
Page 25 of 31
11. ENF0224204 - Home Office
Recommendation for progression of case
Cases considered:
4 Enforcement Referral Log entries in 2008, 2 in relation to 2007 requests (193293;
187880) and 2 in relation to 2008 requests (220748; 221036),
Issues identified: PIT extensions; time for IR.
o CEAFs
24 valid complaints received from 1 January 2008 to 3 December 2008
13 FOI complaints currently open:
F550189778 F550221 036
F550193290 F550223685
F550197511 F550213108
F550197657 F550206324
F550198230
F550202112
F550193293
F550197642
F550198733
4 Decision Notices issued (FS50174491; FS50140492; FS50166599; FS50097518) in
2008, of which:
2 Other Matters sections identifying Good Practice issues:
F550097518: Time for IR in relation to request made in 2005.
F550140492: Missed deadline for PIT completion in relation to request made in 2006.
Patterns arising I notable points:
510
. The audit did not uncover evidence of repeated or persistent breaches of s1 0, The
MOJ quarterly statistics provide the following evidence:
i
...~~
12. s17
. Instances of overlong PIT deliberations. Examples uncovered by the audit:
FS50189778 07/02/07 28/06/07 97
FS50201160 10/12/07 24/04/08 92
FS50220748 13/01/08 No response 223
at 02/12/08
FS50219758 31/01/08 20/05/08 75
In addition to the audit, the evidence of the MOJ Third Annual Report (2007) was also
considered1. This records the following statistics:
The quarterly statistics for the period 1 April 2008 to 30 June 2008 provide much less
detail but show that, of a total of 510 requests, a permitted extension was granted in 44
instances and that 83% of responses were quot;in timequot;, Lequot; met deadline or the permitted
extension.
s45
Internal Reviews - the audit has uncovered both practice and performance issues,
In relation to practice, there is evidence that the Home Office is communicating to those
requesting reviews that its deadline for completion is 40 working days. Whilst this in itself
does not go against the Commissioner's recommendations and it may be that reviews are
actually completed within 20 working days and 40 reflects the outer limit response
deadline, this is not made clear to applicants,
. In FS50197657 (request date 03/05/07) Home Office's acknowledgement states
the
quot;We aim to send you a response within 40 Vlòrking days of our receiving your requestquot;,
1 http://ww. justice. gov. uk/docs/foi-report -2007 -final-web.pdf
2
13. . In FS50221036 (request date 18/04/08) the Home Office's acknowledgement states
quot;The Home Office aims to complete your review and provide you with a response within
40 working days from the date we received your request.quot; However an earlier review
acknowledgement letter (in relation to another request from the same applicant) states
that the Home Office aims to provide quot;.,. ,a response within 20 working days.quot;
. The Home Office website states, in relation to internal reviews:
quot;You will receive a substantive response,iwhighwill have been approved by the head of
the Information Management Service, no more than 40 days after your complaint is first
received.quot;i
In relation to performance, the audit has uncovered the following evidence:
FS50223685 17/08/08 24/10/08 49
FS50221 036 03/06/08 not complete 106
at 31/10/08
FS50206324 20/03/08 17/06/08 60
FS50197654 29/01/08 18/04/08 56
FS50197642 18/01/08 17/03/08 43
FS50193293 19/12/07 01/04/08 68
FS50197657 04/11/07 not complete 145
at 06/06!O,ß
FS50187880 20/08/07 21/12/07 88
i,C:
:.'i
In addition to the audit, the evidence of the MOJ Third Annual Report (2007) was also
considered, This records the following statistics:
Relationship with ICO
. Audit does not provide evidence of engagement issues.
Understanding of the Act
. No evidence of any issues,
2 http://ww. homeoffice. gov. U k/about -uS/freedom-of-inforMation/aSking-for -info/?view=Standard
3
14. Conclusions:
The context here is important. The Home Office is among the top 5 departments in terms
of volumes of requests received. The MOJ stats show that 510 requests were received
during the 1 April 2008 - 30 June 2008 monitoring period, Whilst we would expect such
large departments to have made provision for handling of such volumes of requests, i think
it is also appropriate to consider the instances of poor performance against this backdrop,
s17
In relation to extensions for PIT considerations, the MOJ statistics for 2007 show that
days.'
these were only sought in 11 % of requests received. However, in the majority of instances
(68%) the time taken exceeded 20 working daysf,with 48% taking an excess of 40 working
The Commissioner's guidance sets 40 working days as the absolute deadline in cases
where PIT considerations are exceptionally complex. The audit has uncovered a number
of examples of PIT responses being issued well in excess of the recommended 20 working
day timescale, with the Home Office failing to meet its own estimated deadlines and
requesting multiple extensions. In mitigation, instances where extensions for PIT were
used for the period 2007 were a relatively low proportion of total requests handled (11 %).
However, whilst this shows that a relatively low volume of requests were affected by such
delays, it is disappointing that performance in these examples was not better.
s45 (IR)
The Home Office suggests that it aims to complete its reviews within 40 working days,
Whilst this does not preclude earlier completion, the implication that this is an acceptable
standard timescale does not conform to the recommendations of the Commissioner's
guidance. There is also some evidence that,during 2007, the Home Office routinely failed
to complete internal reviews within the 20 'Nqr;king day recommended timescale (only in
12% of cases) and exceeded the outer limit~i,n ali:ost half (48%) it's internal reviews, The
more recent statistics, extracted from complaintsireceived by the Commissioner, provide a
number of examples of reviews exceeding 40 working days by a significant margin.
Recommendation:
That the Home Office's performance in relation to PIT extensions and internal reviews be
monitored via complaints received and statistics published by the MOJ for a six month
period. At the end of this period (June 2009), should there be further evidence of poor
performance in the specified areas and no evidence of improvement, we write to the Home
Office to highlight our concerns,
Date I Officer: 9 December 2008 Chris Williams FOI Enforcement Officer
4
15. Page 1 of2
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Manners
sent: 02 March 2009 15:48
To: Christopher J, Wiliams
Cc: John-Pierre Lamb
Subject: FW: Home Office bungling
As discussed,
Jon Manners
FOI Team Leader (Police & Justice)
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545700 x 5616
Email: JQncmElJ1QeJ:s~jçQ,gsLgQquot;J,JJs
ww,ico,gov,uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Sigley Jane (lMS) (mailto:Jane.Sigley(9homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk)
Sent: 17 February 2009 15:12
To: Jon Manners
Cc: Lendrum Oliver (lMS)
Subject: Home Office LCO complaints
Dear Mr Manners
One of your case officers, Ben Tomes, has suggested that you are the appropriate point of
contact for this correspondence.
I manage the Information Access Team in the Home Offce which handles all iea and
Tribunal casework, along with the vast majority of internal reviews,
In the past three months, the Home Office has received a surge in correspondence from the
iea regarding Home Office requests which have now been allocated to an iea case officer
to take forward, This is causing considerable resourcing issues for us and I am hoping that
we might be able to come to an agreement about the way in which we handle these cases.
We are aware that you have a relatively large number of Home Office cases awaiting
allocation to case officers. Unfortunately it has been our experience that such cases are
allocated in quot;spurtsquot; over short periods rather than evenly over the course of the year, It is
not unusual for us to have no new cases(allocated to us for several months and then a large
number allocated within a short time frame, When we receive correspondence on a new
case we are asked to reply within 20 working days and we endeavour to do so, However, as
I am sure you wil appreciate, we only have resources to deal with a finite amount of iea
casework at anyone time - cases at this level need to be handled by an experienced FOI
officers within my team and we cannot simply find and bring in new, short term resource to
cope with sudden rises in volumes,
We also face problems when cases are handled in a quot;stop-startquot; manner. For example, cf'
case is allocated and a series of correspondence is exchanged between our offices, then no
action is taken for six months or longer and suddenly the case is started up again and further
correspondence comes our way. Inthe past the gaps between correspondence has meant
that we have had to allocate new case officers to the case because staff have moved on,
This makes handling the case more difficult as, in essence, the new officer has to review the
case from scratch to become familiar with all the issues, particularly if the previous case
officer left their post some time ago.
I have attached a table which shows our current active iea cases including cases which we
fie:1 ie: ternp (Ref. ENF0224 204 J.htrnl 02/04/2009
16. Page 2 of2
believe to be stil active but where we hav.e re~eived no recent correspondence, The cases
highlighted in green are allocated to individual case officers in the department, those
highlighted in yellow have not yet been allocated and those in blue are old cases where we
await further action from your office,
I am trying to find some additional expert resource to get us over this surge of work but i
would like to request your understanding that in the short term we will be unable to meet the
deadlines you have set for these cases. i would also be grateful if you could advise whether
you expect the rate at which we are receiving cases to continue for the foreseeable future. If
this is the case, I wil need to bid for some additional resource to ensure that we can keep up
with the volume of work coming our way.
I would be happy to discuss this further with you in the hope of reaching an agreed way
forward, My direct number is attached below. I will be on leave from 18th to 23rd February
but either Oliver Lendrum or /Iould be happy to discuss this with you before my
return if necessary,
Yours sincerely,
Jane Sigley
Jane Sigley I Information Rights Manager
Information Management Service I Shared Services Directorate I Finance & Commercial Group
4th Floor I Seacole Building I Home Office I 2 Marsham Street I London SW1 P 4DF
Tel: 02070356125
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This email and any files transmitted with it are private and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this email in error please return it to the address
it came from telling them it is not for you and then delete it from your
system.
This email message has been swept for computer viruses.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
fie:IIC:ternp(Ref. ENF0224204).htrnl 02104/2009
17. Page 1 of3
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Manners
sent: 06 March 2009 13:17
To: John-Pierre Lamb
Cc: ehristopher J. Wiliams; Lynsey Smith
Subject: FW: Home Offce ieO complaints
Amended in light of your comment.,.
Jon Manners
FOI Team Leader (Police & Justice)
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625545700 x 5616
Email: jon.manners_~LçQ-.g~L-9Q-.LY1s
WW. iC9-&QV. uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Manners
sent: 06 March 2009 13: 15
To: 'Sigley Jane (lMS)'
Subject: RE: Home Office ieO complaints
Please see the attached response to your queries,
Regards
Jon Manners
FOI Team Leader (Police & Justice)
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625545700 x 5616
Email: jQO,rnannersßYiçQ,gsLgQYJJk
YV,jÇQ,99Y,LIk
-----Original Message-----
From: Sigley Jane (lMS) (mailto:Jane.Sigley(Qhomeoffice,gsi.gov,uk)
Sent: 17 February 2009 15:12
To: Jon Manners
Cc: Lendrum Oliver (lMS)
Subject: Home Office ieO complaints
Dear Mr Manners
One of your case officers, Ben Tomes, has'suggested that you are the appropriate point of
contact for this correspondence.
I manage the Information Access Team in the Home Office which handles all iea and
Tribunal casework, along with the vast majority of internal reviews,
In the past three months, the Home Office has received a surge in correspondence from the
iea regarding Home Office requests which have now been allocated to an iea case officer
to take forward, This is causing considerable resourcing issues for us and I am hoping that
we might be able to come to an agreement about the way in which we handle these cases.
fie://C:temp(Ref. ENF0224204).html 02/04/2009
18. Page 2 of3
We are aware that you have a relatively large number of Home Office cases awaiting
allocation to case offcers, Unfortunately it has been our experience that such cases are
allocated in quot;spurtsquot; over short periods rather than evenly over the course of the year. It is
not unusual for us to have no new cases allocated to us for several months and then a large
number allocated within a short time frame. When we receive correspondence on a new
case we are asked to reply within 20 working days and we endeavour to do so. However, as
I am sure you will appreciate, we only have resources to deal with a finite amount of ICO
casework at anyone time - cases at this level need to be handled by an experienced FOI
offcers within my team and we cannot simply find and bring in new, short term resource to
cope with sudden rises in volumes. quot; ,
We also face problems when cases are handled in a quot;stop-startquot; manner. For example, a
case is allocated and a series of correspondence is exchanged between our offices, then no
action is taken for six months or longer and suddenly the case is started up again and further
correspondence comes our way, In the past the gaps between correspondence has meant
that we have had to allocate new case officers to the case because staff have moved on,
This makes handling the case more diffcult as, in essence, the new officer has to review the
case from scratch to become familiar with all the issues, particularly if the previous case
officer left their post some time ago,
i have attached a table which shows our current active ICO cases including cases which we
believe to be still active but where we have received no recent correspondence, The cases
highlighted in green are allocated to individual case officers in the department, those
highlighted in yellow have not yet been allocated and those in blue are old cases where we
await further action from your office.
I am trying to find some additional expert resource to get us over this surge of work but I
would like to request your understanding that in the short term we will be unable to meet the
deadlines you have set for these cases. I would also be grateful if you could advise whether
you expect the rate at which we are receiving cases to continue for the foreseeable future. If
this is the case, I wil need to bid for some;additional resource to ensure that we can keep up
with the volume of work coming our way.
with y'ou in the hope of reaching an agreed way
i would be happy to discuss this further
forward. My direct number is attached below, I will be on leave from 18th to 23rd February
but either Oliver Lendrum or_would be happy to discuss this with you before my
return if necessary.
Yours sincerely,
Jane Sigley
Jane Sigley I Information Rights Manager
Information Management Service I Shared Services Directorate I Finance & Commercial Group
4th Floor I Seacole Building I Home Office I 2 Marsham Street I London SW1 P 4DF
Tel: 02070356125
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** i~ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * ** * * * * *
This email and any files transmitted with it are private and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
fie:/ /C:temp(Ref. ENF0224204) ,html 02/04/2009
19. Page 3 of3
If you have received this email in error please return it to the address
it came from telling them it is not for you and then delete it from your
system.
This email message has been swept for computer viruses,
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
fie://C:temp(Ref, ENF0224204J.html 02/04/2009
20. Ms Jane Sigley
Information Rights Manager
Information Management Service
Shared Services Directorate
Finance & Commercial Group
4th Floor, Seacole Building
Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
6 March 2009
Dear Ms Sigley
Thank you for your email of 17 February 2009.
You wrote to advise that the Home Office is experiencing resource issues due
the volume of investigation correspondence from the Information Commissioner's
Office (lCO), You raise a number of points,
1) You believe that, during the last three months, there has been a 'surge' in new
Home Office cases being investigated by the ICO, and suggest that this is due to
cases in this office being allocated to complaints officers in 'spurts', You point out
that the Home Office is unable to bring in new, short term resources to cope with
these sudden rises in volumes,
2) You also report that you face problems when ICO cases are handled in a
'stop-start' manner (ie there is correspondence for a period, several months of
inactivity, and then further correspondence), since the original staff have often
moved on,
3) As a consequence, you say that you are unable to meet the deadlines for
response which are being set by ICO case officers,
As you will be aware, I have only recentíy taken over as Team Leader for Team
2. However, having made enquiries, my re~ponse to your points is as follows,
1) Home Office cases are allocated to case officers in the normal way, ie in date
order as spare capacity becomes available, except where there is a particular
reason to adopt a different allocation strategy (eg for cases which are linked, or
those that merit prioritisation), Accordingly, if there are any 'spurts' or 'surges'
they are due to the distribution of complaints coming in to the ICO and being
allocated to this team, and not due to any policy (eg to allocate cases for
investigation in batches), The inflow of cases to this team is not something that is
within my control.
21. 2) In relation to the alleged 'stop-start' nature of the ICO's investigations, i should
explain that all investigations are undertaken by a nominated case officer and
that in normal circumstances the investigation will be ongoing up to the point at
which a Decision Notice is drafted (or the case closed by some other method),
Accordingly, if a Home Office case has 'gone quiet' for a period of some months
that is likely to be because the case has been passed on to another department
of the ICO, Alternatively, it may be that our Frontline Services department has
previously contacted the Home Office some time before the case is allocated to
FOI Team 2, While this may cause problems for the Home Office and I can
understand your frustration, that is again something over which I have very little
control.
3) The ICO's 20 working day deadline has been negotiated with the Ministry of
Justice acting as the representative of all central government departments and
agreed in a Memorandum of Understanding, Although i understand that this is
currently under review, for the time being it represents the policy of this office, I
am not in a position to 'derogate' from this policy in respect of particular public
authorities, and were I to do so I imagine that the Home Office would not be the
only public authority which would wish its particular circumstances to be taken
into account. Accordingly, while I appreciate the burdens on the Home Office, the
case officers in Team 2 will continue to apply the ICO's agreed policy,
I have considered the 23 cases in the table which you provided. I can advise that
7 of the cases are in fact assigned to teams other than Team 2 (highlighted
brown in the table below), I am unable to comment on other teams' cases and
would suggest that you contact the ICO staff who have been communicating with
you on those cases if you have any concerns about them, Of Team 2 cases,
FS50179166 is now closed and the Decision Notice in FS50105778 is about to
be signed off (highlighted yellow), Since your letter 3 more cases have been
allocated to Team 2 case officers (in blue), although the case FS50202112 is
likely to be closed without requiring any further involvement of the Home Office.
In the interests of being constructive, I also attach a list (green) of the 12 Home
Office cases currently unallocated in the.Team 2 queue, including a very
approximate estimation of when they arei likely to be allocated to a case offcer,
¡ .' itl
If you have any questions you can contact JJieby email at
jon,manners(ãico,gsi.gov,uk or by telephone (extension 5616) via the
switchboard on 01625 545700. .
Yours sincerely
Or Jon Manners
Team Leader (Police & Justice)
2
22. Home Office
Information Policy Manager
Information Policy Team, Home Office
4th Floor Seacole Building, 2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P4DF
21st January 2008
Case Reference Number FS50187880
Dear Sir/Madam,
Complaint from
The Information Commissioner has received a complaint from
stating that they have not received a decision regarding the internal review
they requested on 20 August 2007, We enclose a copy of the internal review
request for your information,
Guidance
The Commissioner has issued guidance regarding the time limits on carrying
out internal reviews (Good Practice Guidance 5). The Commissioner
considers that a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20
working days from the date of the request for review, and in no case should
the total time taken exceed 40 working days,
A full copy of this guidance is available on our website (ww,ico,gov,uk)
under the Freedom of Information guidance section.
http://ww, ico ,gov, uklwhat_ we_cover/freedom _ of jnformation/guidance ,aspx
Enforcement
The Commissioner wants to ensure that a complainant has exhausted a
public authority's internal review procedure, but at the same time the
complainant should not be unreasonably delayed in having his complaint
considered under section 50.
Internal reviews are referred to in the section 45 Code of Practice, and
significant or repeated unreasonable delays in dealing with internal reviews
23. will be monitored by the Enforcement team, In some instances structured
intervention, for example the issuing of a Practice Recommendation, may be
necessary.
More detail about the Commissioner's enforcement strategy is available on
our website under the Freedom of Information enforcement section,
http://ww, ico. gov, uk/what_ we _ coverlfreedom _ oCinformation/enforcement. a
spx
Actions
If it is the case that you have not issued an internal review decision to.
I.we recommend that you do so within 20 working days from the date
of receipt of this letter,
If you have, in fact, already responded to , and believe that your
response should already have been recei'(~d, we would recommend you
contact them to confirm receipt if you have not already done so,
If you need to contact us about this complaint please quote the reference
number at the top of this letter.
Yours sincerely,
Jenny Sanders
Fol Case Reception Unit
Information Commissioners Office
24. Mr 0 Lendrum
Information Access Manager
Home Office
4th Floor Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
29th April 2008
Case Reference Number FS50197657
Your reference 6971
Dear Mr Lendrum
Complaint from
The Information Commissioner has received a complaint from
stating that they have not received a decision regarding the internal review
they requested on 4 November 2007, We enclose a copy of the internal
review request for your information,
Guidance
The Commissioner has issued guidance regarding the time limits on carrying
out internal reviews (Good Practice Guidance 5). The Commissioner
considers that a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20
working days from the date of the request for review, and in no case should
the total time taken exceed 40 working days.
A full copy of this guidance is available on our website (ww,ico,gov,uk)
under the Freedom of Information guidance section.
http://ww, ico ,gov, u k1wh at_ we_cover/freedom _ oCinformation/guidance .aspx
Enforcement
The Commissioner wants to ensure that a complainant has exhausted a
public authority's internal review procedure, but at the same time the
complainant should not be unreasonably delayed in having his complaint
considered under section 50.
j?
25. Internal reviews are referred to in the section 45 Code of Practice, and
significant or repeated unreasonable delays in dealing with internal reviews
will be monitored by the EnforcemenUéam, In some instances structured
intervention, for example the issuing of a Practice Recommendation, may be
necessary,
More detail about the Commissioner's enforcement strategy is available on
our website under the Freedom of Information enforcement section,
http://ww, ico, gov. u k/wh at_ we_cover/freedom _of Jnformation/enforcement.a
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Actions
If it is the case that you have not issued an internal review decision to.
a,e recommend that you do so within 20 working days from the date
of receipt of this letter,
If you need to contact us about this complaint please quote the reference
number at the top of this letter.
Yours sincerely,
I .)f
H. Jarman
Fol Case Reception Unit
The Information Commissioner's Office
Jquot;
26. case has been flagged i;.ith the Enforcement
the Home Office's internal requot;ìew has taken
Christopher VV¡lliams 20 1.quot;o,orkirrlJ days recommended in the
Please contact Enforcement once :/our
if yourequire any advice or if vou become aV'Jare
Comment on FS50221036, raising issue of IR delays (referred to on page 2 of Issues
Log,)
