This is a guest post from the redoubtable John Slater, whose tireless efforts to hold DWP to account are a lesson in how FOI should be used. John has had real success in wrestling information out of a stubborn and secretive system, but the post describes the hurdles in the way of the applicant, and the shameful way in which the ICO makes things worse. It’s not a quick read but there’s a lot to say. I think anyone with an interest in how the benefits system operates, or how healthy the FOI system is at the moment should give it the time it deserves. I’m very grateful to John for writing it and letting me host it.
I suspect that most people reading this have experience of submitting a request for information (“RFI”) under the FOIA and all the frustrations that can come with it. Some people may have complained to the office of the Information Commissioner (“ICO”) while others may have just given up when their RFI was refused. I suspect that a smaller number of people, who had the time, appealed ICO decisions to the First-Tier and Upper Tribunals.
Via my involvement with the FOIA I have been dealing with the ICO for approximately 6 years. My interaction has ranged from normal FOIA complaints through to appeals to the First-Tier and Upper Tribunals.
Setting aside the minor issues one typically experiences with any large organization I have to say that my experience of dealing with the ICO has been very positive. Even when a decision notice (“DN”) went against me I could understand why and how that decision was reached. In respect of appeals to the First-Tier and Upper Tribunals I have nothing but praise for the people involved, even when I was appealing an ICO decision.
However, approximately 18 months ago things started to change for the worse. The time taken to respond to complaints seems to be inexorably increasing and the quality of the case work is deteriorating. I’ll use 3 of my current complaints to illustrate the problems that I and others are experiencing on a regular basis.
Case 1 – Universal Credit Programme Board Information Packs
In July 2017 I asked the DWP for the 3 most recent packs of information that were given to the Universal Credit (“UC”) Programme Board members at each monthly meeting. Given how controversial UC is and the history of the DWP being less than honest about it, this seemed to be a good route to try to find out what the senior people responsible for UC actually know and what they are doing about it.
For those not familiar with programme management terminology the programme board consists of senior people who are accountable and responsible for the UC programme, defining the direction of the programme and establishing frameworks to achieve its objectives. So apart from Neil Couling (senior responsible owner) and the secretary of state they are about as senior as it gets. The membership of the programme board can be found here:
Unsurprisingly the DWP refused my RFI on 16 August 2017 citing S.36. However it explained that it needed an extension to carry out the public interest test (“PIT”). On 14 September 2017 the DWP did exactly the same thing. This is a tactic that the DWP uses regularly and often issues monthly PIT extensions until the ICO becomes involved.
I complained to the ICO on 14 September 2017. On 22 November a DN was issued giving the DWP 35 calendar days to issue its response. On 3 January 2018 the DWP finally confirmed that it was engaging S.36 and that the public interest did not favour disclosure (I’ve yet to see a public interest test from the DWP that does favour disclosure). I submitted a revised complaint to the ICO on 9 January 2018 challenging S.36 and the public interest decision.
Despite the 5 month delay by the DWP the ICO bizarrely told me that I still had to exhaust the DWP internal review procedure before my complaint could be investigated. I had submitted 4 internal review requests (“IRR”) during the 5 months that the DWP treated the FOIA with such contempt. I know from previous experience that the DWP would use the same PIT ‘trick’ to delay answering my IRR. I explained this to the ICO and asserted that it has the authority to proceed without me having to submit another IRR. On 30 January the ICO accepted my complaint. I know about this from experience but I assume most people would have followed the ICO instruction and been stuck in another loop of 5 months until the DWP was told to issue its response to the IRR.
On 26 April my case was assigned to a case officer, just 3 months short of a year since I submitted my request to the DWP. Despite the DWP clearly citing S.36 the ICO allowed the DWP to get away with numerous delaying tactics and nothing happened for many months. Despite chasing the ICO on a number of occasions there appeared to be no progress. My patience ran out in October 2018 and I complained to the ICO about this and two other cases. On the face of it this appeared to have got things moving.
However, on 18 October 2018 I was told by the ICO that an information notice had been served on the DWP to obtain copies of the information I had requested. The DWP has 30 days to respond to these notices.
Whilst I’m not surprised by this (in fact I even suggested this was the case in my complaint) I struggle to understand how any organisation can investigate a complaint for almost 6 months without having a copy of the requested information. I can only hope that the DN I have been seeking for so long will appear at some point in 2018!
The delay has been so long that I have actually submitted another request for more current programme board packs. At the time of writing the DWP hasn’t provided a response within 20 days so that’s another complaint that I need to send to the ICO!
Case 2 – Aggregation of various RFIs
Between 4 February and 23 April 2018 the DWP aggregated 9 of my requests for information claiming that they were for the “same or similar” information. Well, what it actually said was:
“We consider each of the seven requests to be of a similar nature as they all relate to either decision making or performance delivery of disability assessments on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. In particular, all of the requests would be allocated to the same team for response as it falls within their specialised area.
Under Section 12 of the FOI Act the Department is not therefore obliged to comply with your request and we will not be processing it further.
This seems to suggest that the DWP believes the requested information is the same or similar because they relate to activities it carries out and the teams that do them. This is a crude attempt to rely on the discredited concept of ‘overarching themes’ that was attempted in Benson v IC and the Governing Body of Buckinghamshire New University (EA20110016). At [29] the Tribunal stated:
“Whilst the Tribunal understood the Commissioner’s analysis the Tribunal felt that it was not compelling and relied on concepts that were not actually within the legislation – e.g. ‘overarching theme’. The Tribunal felt that any consequent uncertainty should, on balance, be resolved in the Appellant’s favour.”
On 30 March I submitted a complaint to the ICO. My complaint involves 9 requests and deals with an important area of the FOIA, where there is very little precedent. A reasonable person might conclude that the ICO would be keen to act swiftly. On 27 April 2018 my complaint was assigned to a case officer so things were looking good. It is now coming towards the end of October and I have not had a single piece of correspondence from the ICO.
The requests that have been aggregated cover management information about how the DWP runs large controversial contracts that assess the eligibility for employment support allowance and personal independence payment (“PIP”). A previous RFI uncovered numerous problems with the quality of medical reports being produced for PIP assessments. This might explain why the DWP is so keen not to let me have the current information but not why there has been no progress by the ICO.
Case 3 – Datasets & Type of Data Held for Various Benefits About Claimants
On 26 February 2018 I asked the DWP to disclose the datasets and type of data it holds about various social security benefits. I am not asking for the actual data just the type of data and the “groups” or “sets” of data that it holds.
On 17 April 2018 the DWP refused my request citing S.31 (it eventually confirmed it meant section 31(1)(a)) and S.24. After a further IRR the DWP reconfirmed its position and I complained to the ICO on 15 July. Some 3 months later on 11 October I was finally told that my case had been assigned to a case officer. Does this now mean I wait for a further 6 months before anything actually happens?
Conclusion
I know the ICO is very busy, partially due to the new Data Protection legislation, but the problems that I and others are experiencing can’t just be explained by “being busy”. Based on my previous experience of dealing with them I also don’t believe it is the fault of the case officers. These problems are due to serious organisational failings within the ICO. There doesn’t seem to be the type of business processes / workflow that one would expect to see in an organisation of this size. The line management oversight of case officers appears to be absent. Based on my own experience it seems to be that the line managers focus solely on protecting case officers while actually making matters worse for them as their workloads probably grow faster than they can cope with.
The ICO should have a small set of metrics about how it is dealing with cases. Surely line managers should be looking at cases where nothing has actually happened for 6 months and do something about it? The idea of management by exception has been around for a long time and yet I’m left with the impression that there are no exceptions set within the ICO and senior management have no impartial way of knowing what is actually going on at the case level.
People might wonder why this matters and that in these times of constrained budgets we should expect cases to take longer. I can’t accept this as one of the key drivers for the FOIA is that we get a chance to hold public authorities to account for their actions. For that to happen we need access to information while it is still relatively current.
It is generally known that there are certain large government departments that have very poor history in respect of FOIA. If someone requests information that these departments suspect will be embarrassing they will deliberately play the system to delay disclosure. From personal experience it’s all far too easy to do:
- Ignore the request completely until the ICO tells the department to respond (3+ months).
- Use the public interest test with impunity to introduce a 5 to 6 month delay before the requester can complain to the ICO about the exemption cited.
- 3 months before a case officer is assigned.
- At least 3 to 6 months before a DN is issued.
Total possible delay = 14 to 18 months.
The department can then appeal the DN to the First-Tier Tribunal (“FTT”), even if there is little chance of success. I’ve had 2 cases recently that have been appealed and then withdrawn just before the FTT hearing was due to take place. This added another 6 month delay let alone the cost to the public purse. If the DWP had actually gone through with the appeals and lost then that delay would probably be closer to 9 to 12 months.
This means that “playing the system” allows disreputable government departments to delay disclosure of embarrassing information by at least 2 years. Any media interest in the information can then be met with the claim that it is now ‘historical’ and things are better now.
A good example of this is the Project Assessment Review Reports (“PARs”) for the Universal Credit programme. I asked the DWP for these in April 2016 (see URL below):
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/universal_credit_programme_proje#comment-82746
Using the delaying tactics described above and making the ICO issue an information notice to compel the DWP to release the PARs to them, they weren’t disclosed until March 2018. That’s a 2 year delay.
The ICO needs to sort out the internal delays that these government departments seem to be relying on. They also need to make sure there are meaningful consequences for public authorities that “play the system”. Writing strongly worded DNs telling public authorities off for abusing the system is meaningless. The ICO was highly critical of the DWP in its DN for the PARs case. A link to the DN is given below and the criticisms start at [62].
https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/decision-notices/2017/2014762/fs50640285.pdf
The criticism has had absolutely no impact on the DWP. It still regularly doesn’t reply in time and still produces “boilerplate” responses that have little bearing on the case in question.
As a result of the new GDPR and Facebook the Information Commissioner regularly seems to be in the media and was recently named as the most influential person in data-driven business in the updated DataIQ 100 list. I hear talk of the Commissioner being able to issue huge fines for data breaches and serving enforcement notices on organisations that are not complying with the FOIA.
The original white paper “your right to know” stated at [1.1]:
“Unnecessary secrecy in Government leads to arrogance in government and defective decision-making. The perception of excess secrecy has become a corrosive influence in the decline of public confidence. Moreover, the climate of public opinion has changed; people expect much greater openness and accountability from government than they used to.”
If public authorities continue to be allowed to easily introduce delays of 2 years before disclosure then the regulator of the FOIA is failing in her role. Before the FOIA we only had the thirty-year rule (now moving to the twenty-year rule) controlling when information was released to the public.
I suggest that we are rapidly approaching the situation where by default we have the “two-year rule” for information government departments do not want released. Unless the Commissioner does something about it that will slowly increase to the “three-year rule” and then the “four-year rule”. From my perspective its time the Commissioner stopped boasting about all the powers she has and started using them.