Budget
The ICO will ensure that we meet all the obligations for the proper and efficient use of public money in accordance with the law, audit requirements and the ICO/Ministry of Justice framework document.
For both data protection and freedom of information work we will need to ensure that the ICO has the resources and capacity to deal with any increases in workloads, taking account of efficiencies the office makes.
For freedom of information, our assumptions are based on grant aid as follows:
| 2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/2011 |
| £5.5 million | £5.5 million | £5.5 million |
This allows us to keep pace with the current volume of freedom of information complaints. We will not be able to reduce the number of cases held at any one time, which will remain at around 1,300. However, we will make every effort to increase output, for example by using secondees from government departments and by increasing efficiency in our working practices.
For data protection, aiming to increase the number of organisations notifying the Commissioner by 2% per year, we anticipate income to be:
| 2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/2011 |
| £11.1 million | £17.3 million | £17.6 million |
These projections assume an additional fee income of approximately £6.0 million a year to improve our infrastructure and undertake enhanced inspection duties. This money will come from possible changes to the collection of the notification fee, currently being considered by the Ministry of Justice, and assumes any changes agreed can be implemented from April 2009.