According to the Information Commissioner's Office, over 1,000
of these complaints have been resolved either by negotiation,
informal resolution or by formal decision notice. Only 135 such
notices have been issued so far.
The ICO has been criticised for a delay in dealing with
complaints, generating a backlog of six months, according to some
reports. The ICO blames this partly on an initial surge of
complaints, reflecting the initial wave of information requests
made to public authorities at the start of 2005.
But the ICO reports that it has learned much in the past year
and it has recently instituted a series of new measures designed to
help it deal more effectively with complaints.
These include setting up a new case reception unit, introducing
a new complaints form, more active case management and extra staff,
including more senior managers.
“I am confident that with the changes we have made, along with
our growing experience, we can accelerate case handling procedures
and improve productivity,” said Information Commissioner Richard
Thomas.
“Particularly complex cases do take longer to resolve, but
increasing experience will continue to reduce the time this takes.
We have already closed over a third of all cases and our closure
rate continues to improve. We are also discussing increased
resources with the Department for Constitutional Affairs which will
help us to deliver further improvements to our service,” he
said.
The most common complaints relate to the general right of access
to information held by public authorities (where the complaint is
that requested information has not been provided, in full or in
part) and to the length of time a public authority may take to
comply with a request.
A survey carried out among 500 public authorities reveals that
the majority believe the Act is beneficial and is helping to create
a culture of greater openness in the public sector.
Increased openness and transparency, better records management,
improved accountability and improved relationships with the public
were all highlighted in the survey as benefits of the Act. Three
out of five respondents said that their organisation released more
information to the public as a result of the Freedom of Information
Act.
Two thirds of public authorities receiving information requests
had turned one or more requests down, with 77% of large authorities
and 52% of small to medium-sized authorities admitting to rejecting
a request.
The most common reason for this, according to the survey, was
because the request sought personal information on a staff member
(53%). Other common reasons for rejection were commercial
sensitivity (33%) or the fact that the data was available elsewhere
(14%).
Most authorities (76%) are planning further changes to their
publication schemes or their filing and record management systems
in the next year, in order to further comply with the Act.
“Governmental culture is starting to change,” said Mr Thomas.
“There is still a long way to go but I am encouraged by the range
and significant number of disclosures we have seen so far.”
