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Home Offce Fol Complaint/Home Ofce Reference 9419Complainant:

1 November 2008

AppendixM. Email from lan Lister furter Delaying the Internal

Review11 July 2008

tP ""H'om:e :Offce

Information Rights TeamShared Services Directorate

2 Marsham Street, London SW1 P 4DFSwitchboard 020 7035 4848

E-mail: Info,Accsscæhomeoffce.gsi.gov.uk Website: ww.homeoffce.gov,uk

Our Ref:Date:

941911th July 2008

I write further to our telephone conversation last week and to your email of the 7th July 2008, sent tomyself and my colleague Oliver Lendrum. Please allow me to extend my apologies for the fact that ihave 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 HomeOffce 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 workingdays from the date we received your request. Therefore, we aim to have provided you with a fullresponse by the 30th August 2008, I wil include all the findings of the procedural review of thisrequest in with this response,

As I mentioned in our phone conversation last Wednesday, our Internal Review wil only cover theareas of your requests that have handled under the Freedom of Information Act. It wil therefore notcover any of the responses to questions that have been answered by Mr, Knight and his colleaguesas "normal ~usinessn enquiries. We will however cover whether or not we feel any of these questionsshould 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 substanceof your request with, please feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Page 24 of 31

Home Offce Fol Complaint/Home Ofce Reference 9419Complainant:

1 November 2008

lan LlsterInformation Access ConsultantInformation Rights Team

.i':,

Page 25 of 31

.,k,.y-, .. :,,/,j!', . ,

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:

F550189778F550193290F550197511F550197657F550198230F550202112F550193293F550197642F550198733

F550221 036F550223685F550213108F550206324

4 Decision Notices issued (FS50174491; FS50140492; FS50166599; FS50097518) in2008, 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

s17

. Instances of overlong PIT deliberations. Examples uncovered by the audit:

FS50189778FS50201160FS50220748

07/02/0710/12/0713/01/08

28/06/0724/04/08

No responseat 02/12/08

20/05/08

9792

223

FS50219758 7531/01/08

In addition to the audit, the evidence of the MOJ Third Annual Report (2007) was alsoconsidered1. This records the following statistics:

The quarterly statistics for the period 1 April 2008 to 30 June 2008 provide much lessdetail but show that, of a total of 510 requests, a permitted extension was granted in 44instances and that 83% of responses were "in time", Le" met deadline or the permittedextension.

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 thoserequesting reviews that its deadline for completion is 40 working days. Whilst this in itselfdoes not go against the Commissioner's recommendations and it may be that reviews areactually completed within 20 working days and 40 reflects the outer limit responsedeadline, this is not made clear to applicants,

. In FS50197657 (request date 03/05/07) the Home Office's acknowledgement states"We aim to send you a response within 40 Vlòrking days of our receiving your request",

1 http://ww. justice. gov. uk/docs/foi-report -2007 -final-web.pdf

2

. In FS50221036 (request date 18/04/08) the Home Office's acknowledgement states"The Home Office aims to complete your review and provide you with a response within40 working days from the date we received your request." However an earlier reviewacknowledgement letter (in relation to another request from the same applicant) statesthat the Home Office aims to provide ".,. ,a response within 20 working days."

. The Home Office website states, in relation to internal reviews:

"You will receive a substantive response,iwhighwill have been approved by the head ofthe Information Management Service, no more than 40 days after your complaint is firstreceived."i

In relation to performance, the audit has uncovered the following evidence:

FS50223685 17/08/08 24/10/08 49FS50221 036 03/06/08 not complete 106

at 31/10/08FS50206324 20/03/08 17/06/08 60FS50197654 29/01/08 18/04/08 56FS50197642 18/01/08 17/03/08 43FS50193293 19/12/07 01/04/08 68FS50197657 04/11/07 not complete 145

at 06/06!O,ß

FS50187880 20/08/07 21/12/07 88i,C:

:.'i

In addition to the audit, the evidence of the MOJ Third Annual Report (2007) was alsoconsidered, 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

Conclusions:

The context here is important. The Home Office is among the top 5 departments in termsof volumes of requests received. The MOJ stats show that 510 requests were receivedduring the 1 April 2008 - 30 June 2008 monitoring period, Whilst we would expect suchlarge departments to have made provision for handling of such volumes of requests, i thinkit 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 thatthese 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 workingdays.'The Commissioner's guidance sets 40 working days as the absolute deadline in caseswhere PIT considerations are exceptionally complex. The audit has uncovered a numberof examples of PIT responses being issued well in excess of the recommended 20 workingday timescale, with the Home Office failing to meet its own estimated deadlines andrequesting multiple extensions. In mitigation, instances where extensions for PIT wereused 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 suchdelays, 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 acceptablestandard timescale does not conform to the recommendations of the Commissioner'sguidance. There is also some evidence that,during 2007, the Home Office routinely failedto complete internal reviews within the 20 'Nqr;king day recommended timescale (only in12% of cases) and exceeded the outer limit~i,n ali:ost half (48%) it's internal reviews, Themore recent statistics, extracted from complaintsireceived by the Commissioner, provide anumber 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 bemonitored via complaints received and statistics published by the MOJ for a six monthperiod. At the end of this period (June 2009), should there be further evidence of poorperformance in the specified areas and no evidence of improvement, we write to the HomeOffice to highlight our concerns,

Date I Officer: 9 December 2008 Chris Williams FOI Enforcement Officer

4

Page 1 of2

-----Original Message-----From: Jon Manners

sent: 02 March 2009 15:48

To: Christopher J, WiliamsCc: John-Pierre LambSubject: FW: Home Office bungling

As discussed,

Jon MannersFOI Team Leader (Police & Justice)Information Commissioner's OfficeWycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AFTel: 01625 545700 x 5616Email: JQncmElJ1QeJ:s~jçQ,gsLgQ\"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 MannersCc: 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 ofcontact for this correspondence.

I manage the Information Access Team in the Home Offce which handles all iea andTribunal casework, along with the vast majority of internal reviews,

In the past three months, the Home Office has received a surge in correspondence from theiea regarding Home Office requests which have now been allocated to an iea case officerto take forward, This is causing considerable resourcing issues for us and I am hoping thatwe 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 awaitingallocation to case officers. Unfortunately it has been our experience that such cases areallocated in "spurts" over short periods rather than evenly over the course of the year, It isnot unusual for us to have no new cases(allocated to us for several months and then a largenumber allocated within a short time frame, When we receive correspondence on a newcase we are asked to reply within 20 working days and we endeavour to do so, However, asI am sure you wil appreciate, we only have resources to deal with a finite amount of ieacasework at anyone time - cases at this level need to be handled by an experienced FOIofficers within my team and we cannot simply find and bring in new, short term resource tocope with sudden rises in volumes,

We also face problems when cases are handled in a "stop-start" manner. For example, cf'case is allocated and a series of correspondence is exchanged between our offices, then noaction is taken for six months or longer and suddenly the case is started up again and furthercorrespondence comes our way. Inthe past the gaps between correspondence has meantthat 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 thecase from scratch to become familiar with all the issues, particularly if the previous caseofficer 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

Page 2 of2

believe to be stil active but where we hav.e re~eived no recent correspondence, The caseshighlighted in green are allocated to individual case officers in the department, thosehighlighted in yellow have not yet been allocated and those in blue are old cases where weawait further action from your office,

I am trying to find some additional expert resource to get us over this surge of work but iwould like to request your understanding that in the short term we will be unable to meet thedeadlines you have set for these cases. i would also be grateful if you could advise whetheryou expect the rate at which we are receiving cases to continue for the foreseeable future. Ifthis is the case, I wil need to bid for some additional resource to ensure that we can keep upwith the volume of work coming our way.

I would be happy to discuss this further with you in the hope of reaching an agreed wayforward, My direct number is attached below. I will be on leave from 18th to 23rd Februarybut either Oliver Lendrum or /Iould be happy to discuss this with you before myreturn if necessary,

Yours sincerely,

Jane Sigley

Jane Sigley I Information Rights ManagerInformation Management Service I Shared Services Directorate I Finance & Commercial Group4th Floor I Seacole Building I Home Office I 2 Marsham Street I London SW1 P 4DFTel: 02070356125

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This email and any files transmitted with it are private and intendedsolely 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 addressit came from telling them it is not for you and then delete it from yoursystem.

This email message has been swept for computer viruses.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

fie:IIC:\ternp\(Ref. ENF0224204).htrnl 02104/2009

Page 1 of3

-----Original Message-----From: Jon Manners

sent: 06 March 2009 13:17

To: John-Pierre LambCc: ehristopher J. Wiliams; Lynsey SmithSubject: FW: Home Offce ieO complaints

Amended in light of your comment.,.

Jon MannersFOI Team Leader (Police & Justice)Information Commissioner's OfficeWycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AFTel: 01625545700 x 5616Email: 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 MannersFOI Team Leader (Police & Justice)Information Commissioner's OfficeWycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AFTel: 01625545700 x 5616Email: 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 ofcontact for this correspondence.

I manage the Information Access Team in the Home Office which handles all iea andTribunal casework, along with the vast majority of internal reviews,

In the past three months, the Home Office has received a surge in correspondence from theiea regarding Home Office requests which have now been allocated to an iea case officerto take forward, This is causing considerable resourcing issues for us and I am hoping thatwe 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

Page 2 of3

We are aware that you have a relatively large number of Home Office cases awaitingallocation to case offcers, Unfortunately it has been our experience that such cases areallocated in "spurts" over short periods rather than evenly over the course of the year. It isnot unusual for us to have no new cases allocated to us for several months and then a largenumber allocated within a short time frame. When we receive correspondence on a newcase we are asked to reply within 20 working days and we endeavour to do so. However, asI am sure you will appreciate, we only have resources to deal with a finite amount of ICOcasework at anyone time - cases at this level need to be handled by an experienced FOIoffcers within my team and we cannot simply find and bring in new, short term resource tocope with sudden rises in volumes. " ,

We also face problems when cases are handled in a "stop-start" manner. For example, acase is allocated and a series of correspondence is exchanged between our offices, then noaction is taken for six months or longer and suddenly the case is started up again and furthercorrespondence comes our way, In the past the gaps between correspondence has meantthat 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 thecase from scratch to become familiar with all the issues, particularly if the previous caseofficer left their post some time ago,

i have attached a table which shows our current active ICO cases including cases which webelieve to be still active but where we have received no recent correspondence, The caseshighlighted in green are allocated to individual case officers in the department, thosehighlighted in yellow have not yet been allocated and those in blue are old cases where weawait further action from your office.

I am trying to find some additional expert resource to get us over this surge of work but Iwould like to request your understanding that in the short term we will be unable to meet thedeadlines you have set for these cases. I would also be grateful if you could advise whetheryou expect the rate at which we are receiving cases to continue for the foreseeable future. Ifthis is the case, I wil need to bid for some;additional resource to ensure that we can keep upwith the volume of work coming our way.

i would be happy to discuss this further with y'ou in the hope of reaching an agreed wayforward. My direct number is attached below, I will be on leave from 18th to 23rd Februarybut either Oliver Lendrum or_would be happy to discuss this with you before myreturn if necessary.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Sigley

Jane Sigley I Information Rights ManagerInformation Management Service I Shared Services Directorate I Finance & Commercial Group4th Floor I Seacole Building I Home Office I 2 Marsham Street I London SW1 P 4DFTel: 02070356125

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** i~ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * ** * * * * *

This email and any files transmitted with it are private and intendedsolely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.

fie:/ /C:\temp\(Ref. ENF0224204) ,html 02/04/2009

Page 3 of3

If you have received this email in error please return it to the addressit came from telling them it is not for you and then delete it from yoursystem.

This email message has been swept for computer viruses,

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

fie://C:\temp\(Ref, ENF0224204J.html 02/04/2009

Ms Jane SigleyInformation Rights ManagerInformation Management ServiceShared Services DirectorateFinance & Commercial Group4th Floor, Seacole BuildingHome Office2 Marsham StreetLondonSW1P 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 duethe volume of investigation correspondence from the Information Commissioner'sOffice (lCO), You raise a number of points,

1) You believe that, during the last three months, there has been a 'surge' in newHome Office cases being investigated by the ICO, and suggest that this is due tocases in this office being allocated to complaints officers in 'spurts', You point outthat the Home Office is unable to bring in new, short term resources to cope withthese 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 ofinactivity, and then further correspondence), since the original staff have oftenmoved on,

3) As a consequence, you say that you are unable to meet the deadlines forresponse which are being set by ICO case officers,

As you will be aware, I have only recentíy taken over as Team Leader for Team2. 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 dateorder as spare capacity becomes available, except where there is a particularreason to adopt a different allocation strategy (eg for cases which are linked, orthose 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 beingallocated to this team, and not due to any policy (eg to allocate cases forinvestigation in batches), The inflow of cases to this team is not something that iswithin my control.

2) In relation to the alleged 'stop-start' nature of the ICO's investigations, i shouldexplain that all investigations are undertaken by a nominated case officer andthat in normal circumstances the investigation will be ongoing up to the point atwhich 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 monthsthat is likely to be because the case has been passed on to another departmentof the ICO, Alternatively, it may be that our Frontline Services department haspreviously contacted the Home Office some time before the case is allocated toFOI Team 2, While this may cause problems for the Home Office and I canunderstand your frustration, that is again something over which I have very littlecontrol.

3) The ICO's 20 working day deadline has been negotiated with the Ministry ofJustice acting as the representative of all central government departments andagreed in a Memorandum of Understanding, Although i understand that this iscurrently under review, for the time being it represents the policy of this office, Iam not in a position to 'derogate' from this policy in respect of particular publicauthorities, and were I to do so I imagine that the Home Office would not be theonly public authority which would wish its particular circumstances to be takeninto account. Accordingly, while I appreciate the burdens on the Home Office, thecase 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 that7 of the cases are in fact assigned to teams other than Team 2 (highlightedbrown in the table below), I am unable to comment on other teams' cases andwould suggest that you contact the ICO staff who have been communicating withyou 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 tobe signed off (highlighted yellow), Since your letter 3 more cases have beenallocated to Team 2 case officers (in blue), although the case FS50202112 islikely 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 HomeOffice cases currently unallocated in the.Team 2 queue, including a veryapproximate estimation of when they arei likely to be allocated to a case offcer,

¡ .' itlIf you have any questions you can contact JJieby email atjon,manners(ãico,gsi.gov,uk or by telephone (extension 5616) via theswitchboard on 01625 545700. .

Yours sincerely

Or Jon MannersTeam Leader (Police & Justice)

2

Home OfficeInformation Policy ManagerInformation Policy Team, Home Office4th Floor Seacole Building, 2 Marsham StreetLondonSW1P4DF

21st January 2008

Case Reference Number FS50187880

Dear Sir/Madam,

Complaint from

The Information Commissioner has received a complaint fromstating that they have not received a decision regarding the internal reviewthey requested on 20 August 2007, We enclose a copy of the internal reviewrequest for your information,

Guidance

The Commissioner has issued guidance regarding the time limits on carryingout internal reviews (Good Practice Guidance 5). The Commissionerconsiders that a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20working days from the date of the request for review, and in no case shouldthe 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 apublic authority's internal review procedure, but at the same time thecomplainant should not be unreasonably delayed in having his complaintconsidered under section 50.

Internal reviews are referred to in the section 45 Code of Practice, andsignificant or repeated unreasonable delays in dealing with internal reviews

will be monitored by the Enforcement team, In some instances structuredintervention, for example the issuing of a Practice Recommendation, may benecessary.

More detail about the Commissioner's enforcement strategy is available onour website under the Freedom of Information enforcement section,

http://ww, ico. gov, uk/what_ we _ coverlfreedom _ oCinformation/enforcement. aspx

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 yourresponse should already have been recei'(~d, we would recommend youcontact them to confirm receipt if you have not already done so,

If you need to contact us about this complaint please quote the referencenumber at the top of this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Jenny SandersFol Case Reception UnitInformation Commissioners Office

Mr 0 Lendrum

Information Access ManagerHome Office4th Floor Seacole Building2 Marsham StreetLondonSW1P 4DF

29th April 2008

Case Reference Number FS50197657Your reference 6971

Dear Mr Lendrum

Complaint from

The Information Commissioner has received a complaint fromstating that they have not received a decision regarding the internal reviewthey requested on 4 November 2007, We enclose a copy of the internalreview request for your information,

Guidance

The Commissioner has issued guidance regarding the time limits on carryingout internal reviews (Good Practice Guidance 5). The Commissionerconsiders that a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20working days from the date of the request for review, and in no case shouldthe 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 apublic authority's internal review procedure, but at the same time thecomplainant should not be unreasonably delayed in having his complaintconsidered under section 50.

j?

Internal reviews are referred to in the section 45 Code of Practice, andsignificant or repeated unreasonable delays in dealing with internal reviewswill be monitored by the EnforcemenUéam, In some instances structuredintervention, for example the issuing of a Practice Recommendation, may benecessary,

More detail about the Commissioner's enforcement strategy is available onour website under the Freedom of Information enforcement section,

http://ww, ico, gov. u k/wh at_ we_cover/freedom _of Jnformation/enforcement.aspx

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 referencenumber at the top of this letter.

Yours sincerely,

I .)f

H. JarmanFol Case Reception UnitThe Information Commissioner's Office

J"

Christopher VV¡lliams

case has been flagged i;.ith the Enforcementthe Home Office's internal re\"ìew has taken

20 1."o,orkirrlJ days recommended in thePlease contact Enforcement once :/ourif yourequire any advice or if vou become aV'Jare

Comment on FS50221036, raising issue of IR delays (referred to on page 2 of IssuesLog,)