Our year at a glance
Data protection casework
More than half of data protection cases required us to simply provide advice and guidance. In some cases this advice was relatively straightforward, in others extremely complex. In the remainder of cases, we considered whether a breach of the Data Protection Act or Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations was likely to have occurred.
In one third (35.28%) of these cases we decided a breach was likely to have occurred and the organisation took remedial action in three quarters (77.49%) of these cases. Such remedial actions may include a data controller correcting an individual’s record, implementing a data protection policy or training staff.
Time to close cases |
Target |
Actual |
| 30 days or less | 40% | 66% |
| 90 days or less | 90% | 91% |
| 180 days or less | 98% | 98% |
| Received | Closed | Work in Progress |
| 23,988 | 24,084 | 1,978 |
Freedom of information casework
Over half of cases were resolved within a month. Over 45% were resolved informally, where the ICO brokers an agreement between the two parties. In 13% of cases, we served a decision notice. During 2006/07 we served 339 decision notices. This is a 82% increase on 2005/06 when 186 decision notices were served.
Time to close cases |
Target |
Actual |
| 30 days or less | 35% | 52.98% |
| 90 days or less | 40% | 59.13% |
| 180 days or less | 50% | 66.74% |
| 365 days or less | 80% | 83.78% |
| Received | Closed | Work in Progress* |
| 2,592 | 2,601 | 1,371 |
| * Data cleansing exercises have taken place throughout the financial year which resulted in a revised carry forward figure from 2005/06 of 1,380. | ||
92 appeals against ICO decisions were lodged with the Information Tribunal during 2006/07.
Customer satisfaction June 2006
| How do data controllers rate the quality of service overall? (base: 128) | |||||
| Excellent | Very good | Good | Fair | Poor | Don’t know |
| 9% | 23% | 34% | 20% | 15% | 0% |
| How do individuals rate the quality of service overall? (base: 202) | |||||
| Excellent | Very good | Good | Fair | Poor | Don’t know |
| 14% | 22% | 20% | 12% | 28% | 3% |
| How do Freedom of Information practitioners rate the quality of service overall? (base: 74) |
|||||
| Excellent | Very good | Good | Fair | Poor | Don’t know |
| 18% | 22% | 35% | 12% | 12% | 1% |
| How do individuals rate the quality of service overall? (base: 26) Number giving each response |
|||||
| Excellent | Very good | Good | Fair | Poor | Don’t know |
| 3 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 2 |
Requests for information received by the Information Commissioner’s Office under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Information Commissioner is a public authority for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. He receives requests for information held by us. An Information Requests Team administers our responses to these. Request handlers are advised by the Information Requests Board, chaired by the Director of Legal Services. In 2006/07 the ICO received 297 requests, 28% more than in the previous financial year.
A disclosure log is available on the Information Commissioner’s Office website which provides access to responses to requests that are of wider public interest.
| 2006/07 | 2005/06 | |
| Total requests received | 297 | 232 |
| Average number of working days taken to deal with a request | 15 | 15 |
| Number of internal reviews requested | 24 | 11 |
| Average number of working days taken to deal with a review* | 18 | 36 |
| Outcome of reviews | ||
| Upheld | 16 | 9 |
| Overturned |
4 | 2 |
| Hybrid | 4 | 0 |
*The ICO’s time period for responding to requests for internal reviews was 40 working days during 2005/06. This time period was reduced to 20 working days for 2006/07.