Freedom of information

Complaints about Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information Act gives you the right to ask for official information held by public authorities. If you feel a public authority has wrongly withheld information, you can complain.

What can I complain about?

You can complain on any of the following grounds:

Failure to provide the information you requested
Failure to respond to your request within 20 working days (or failure to explain why longer than 20 working days is needed)
Failure to give you proper advice and help
Failure to give information in the form in which you requested it
Failure to properly explain any reasons for refusing the request
Failure to correctly apply an exemption under the Act

Who should I complain to?

Firstly, you should complain directly to the public authority itself. They should have their own complaints procedure.

If the authority has no complaints procedure or if you don’t believe it has dealt with your complaint properly, you can contact us. You should do this as soon as possible, or within two months following the final response of the public authority.

What does the Information Commissioner need?

In order for us to deal with your complaint properly you should write to us and send the following:

A covering letter giving us details of your complaint
Details of your initial request
A copy of the public authority’s initial response (known as the Refusal Notice)
A copy of the complaint you made to the public authority’s internal review or complaints procedure
A copy of the public authority’s response
Any other information you think is relevant
Your contact details

Alternatively you can complete our freedom of information complaints form (PDF version). If all evidence in support of your complaint is available electronically, please complete our complaints form (word version for electronic submission) and save it to your computer before submitting it as an attachment, along with any evidence, to our online enquiry form.

Before completing your complaints form, please read through this webpage or our freedom of information and environmental information regulations - when and how to complain leaflet.

How will the Information Commissioner deal with my complaint?

All complaints are initially handled by our Case Reception Unit. The Unit makes an early assessment of all complaints to establish whether they can be progressed.

We'll send you an acknowledgement letter and a case reference number. We'll also notify the relevant public authority that we've received a complaint about them. Your complaint will then be referred to a Case Resolution Team and allocated to a Case Resolution Officer in line with our published service standards. If we can't resolve your complaint informally, we'll issue a decision notice which we send to you and the public authority you've complained about.

When would you not progress my complaint?

There are three reasons why a complaint may not progress beyond the Case Reception Unit:

We haven't been provided with sufficient information or documentation in support of a complaint, or the information provided is unclear. Where we require further information the CRU will write to request it. Your complaint will be closed until we receive the information we have asked for.
Your complaint is deemed ineligible under section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. For example:
- Where there is an undue delay before bringing a complaint to our attention, or
- Where a public authority has not yet been asked to internally review their decision not to disclose information.
The complaint, whilst containing all relevant evidence, falls within our robust complaint handling criteria. In these cases the Commissioner would not consider that there was any public interest served by issuing a decision notice even if he upheld the complaint. These are cases where there are no unresolved issues. Such cases will not be ignored. On the contrary, the Commissioner will contact the public authority and provide it with clear advice as to how it should respond to future requests. Further details are provided in our paper 'a robust approach to freedom of information complaint handling'.

Where we feel a complaint falls within these criteria we will write to you to explain why. We will then close the case and let you know what advice has been given to the public authority.

The robust complaints handling criteria include:

Where there has been a delay in response to a request for information, but it is clear that the requested information has now been provided
Where the requested information has now been provided following intervention from our office
Where a refusal notice provided by a public authority may be technically defective but it is obvious, from the face of the evidence, that the request was properly refused
Where a breach was of a procedural nature only (including failure to provide advice or help) which a public authority has subsequently acknowledged
Where an alleged breach is insignificant with no practical consequence

These criteria will initially be applied by the Case Reception Unit, but in some cases where a complaint is deemed to meet one or more of the robust complaint handling criteria at a later stage we may still reject the complaint and close the case.

Where we are unable to progress a complaint we will always write to explain why.

Are there any exceptions to the robust complaint handling criteria?

We will consider complaints falling within the robust complaint handling criteria where one or more of the following exceptions apply:

Where there is evidence to suggest that a public authority has deliberately delayed its response to a request or has otherwise deliberately failed to meet its obligations
Where the effect of delay or other non-compliance served the purposes of the public authority and requires the censure of an adverse Decision Notice (e.g. avoiding disclosure at a critical time)
Where the requested information was eventually disclosed, perhaps after ICO intervention, but it would be right in the circumstances to proceed to a Decision Notice, for example to provide a formal record of the outcome
Where a public authority has delayed responses or otherwise failed to meet its obligations in similar circumstances in previous cases
Where there are sound reasons of principle or precedent for proceeding to a Decision Notice
Where it would be manifestly unreasonable in the particular circumstances not to proceed with the case

Read our full robust approach to to FOI complaints cases.

What is a decision notice?

A decision notice outlines the Information Commissioner's final assessment as to whether or not the public authority has complied with the Freedom of Information Act or the Environmental Information Regulations.

If the Information Commissioner decides the public authority has not given you the information you are entitled to, we will instruct it to do so.

At the same time as issuing a decision notice, we will send you details of your right to appeal to the Information Tribunal. The public authority may also appeal.

Search our decision notices.

What if the public authority ignores a decision notice?

If a public authority ignores a notice, the Information Commissioner can make an application to the High Court. The court will investigate and may deal with the authority as if it has committed contempt of court. The punishment may be a fine or even imprisonment.

How do I know what information is held by public authorities?

Public authorities are obliged to produce Publication Schemes - these are a public commitment to make certain information available and a guide to how that information can be obtained. All publication schemes have to be approved by the Information Commissioner and should be periodically reviewed by authorities to ensure they are accurate and up to date.

The Information Commissioner can consider complaints about a public authority's obligations to adopt and publish in accordance with its publication scheme, for example, failure to adopt a scheme, or failure to publish information in accordance with the classes of the scheme. Complaints regarding non-compliance with publication scheme obligations should initially be made to the public authority itself. However, where the matter fails to be resolved a complaint may be made to the ICO.

The Information Commissioner can look into the matter if it appears the public authority is not complying with its duties under the Act, and has discretionary powers to enforce the adoption of a scheme, or the disclosure of information which falls within the classes of a publication scheme if he is satisfied that the public authority is not complying with its duties under the Act.