Information Commissioner's Office

3. Mr M complains ICO took too long to issue a decision notice on his complaint about how the Cabinet Office responded to his Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

4. Mr M says this means he has been unable to perform his public watchdog function as an investigative reporter.

5. As an outcome to his complaint he would like service improvements at ICO.

6. On 5 July 2022 Mr M made an FOI request to the Cabinet Office asking it to supply specific information. The Cabinet Office refused to do so and explained it could not ‘confirm or deny’ if it held the information he asked for.

7. In November 2022 Mr M asked ICO to investigate his concerns and it passed the case to a case officer in July 2023. ICO issued a decision notice on 19 January 2024 that upheld Mr M’s complaint and decided he was entitled to the information he requested.

10. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have found no indications things went wrong.

11. Mr M says ICO told him it would not publish its decision notice until the Cabinet Office had given further detail on why it chose not to fulfil Mr M’s FOI request. Mr M believes the Cabinet Office put off responding to the ICO and this delay meant ICO should have published its decision notice without the Cabinet Office’s input.

12. Our Principles say organisations should account for all relevant considerations when making decisions and act within reasonable timescales.

13. When ICO asks for information from an organisation it relies on Section 51 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This sets out that ICO can require an organisation to provide information, but there is little ICO can do to compel the organisation to fulfil the request within a certain timescale.

14. ICO has explained it could have issued a decision notice without input from the Cabinet Office. However, the ICO’s role is to is to uphold information rights in the broader public interest. Therefore, if ICO issued a decision without such details then it would provide little value to these broader information rights.

15. We consider the ICO was justified to get an explanation from the Cabinet Office before issuing a decision notice. However, we would expect ICO to try and progress matters quickly and take prompt action to get the evidence it requested.

16. Having spoken to ICO about what happened we know it requested the relevant information from the Cabinet Office on 17 July 2023. The Cabinet Office did not respond and so ICO chased it for a response on 12 October, 15 November, and 27 November.

17. When the Cabinet Office provided the information ICO issued its decision notice soon after.

18. We acknowledge the frustration Mr M has experienced because ICO did not issue its decision notice sooner. We also understand he feels this has prevented him from doing his job and acknowledge the aggravation this must have caused.

19. Having considered what happened we are satisfied ICO’s decision to request information from the Cabinet Office was a reasonable one. It also pursued this information as we would expect and reached a prompt decision after the information arrived. This was in line with the ICO’s role and our Principles.

1. We have carefully considered Mr M’s complaint about the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). We have seen no indication anything went seriously wrong. This is because ICO reasonably decided to get more information before making a decision and actively pursued getting it.

2. We understand how frustrating Mr M has found the problem he has told us about and recognise the difficulty this has caused him with his job. We hope he finds the explanation given below is reassuring.