ICO Disclosure Log – Response IRQ0612591

Dataset description

Request:

Under the freedom of information act I would like to make a request to have details of the number for all the complaints you have and are linked to council and for it to be categorised under which department it comes under. ie. If it is a council tax discount dispute it will come under council tax complaints,if it the council not updating changes for income for housing benefit it will come under the benefit complaints etc ( even if the complaints are still under investigation).

And on the complaints side of things what order will the 10 councils of Greater come under looking at the number of complaints you get regarding them. Starting with the worst council followed by the least in number order of complaints you have received even if the complaints are still under investigation.

The 10 council that I require information on under the freedom of information act is the following-

Bury Council Council Manchester Council Rochdale Council Salford Council Stockport Council Council Wigan Council

Date period covered by information:

1 April 2012 – 15 January 2016

Explanation of information provided:

Firstly, it may help if I explain a bit about the ICO and what we do:

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is a UK independent supervisory authority that oversees the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the related Regulations. The DPA deals with recorded information about individuals and the FOIA governs access to public information held by public authorities.

We are also subject to the DPA and FOIA as a data controller and public authority. The majority of the information that we hold relates to our function as a Regulator such as the personal data of individuals that raise concerns with us and details of organisations that we have received complaints about or are monitoring for compliance with the DPA and FOIA. For more information regarding who we are and what we do, you may find our website helpful: www.ico.org.uk or feel free to give our helpline (below) a call and they will be happy to assist you.

The ICO holds the details of casework within an electronic case management system. The system we use allows us to search for the casework we have dealt with in a number of different ways, such as by the unique reference number the case was given, the name and address of the person who contacted us and the name of any party that has been complained about. We can also search for casework on the basis of the broad nature of the matter, but we can only search on a limited number of fixed criteria which are structured around the main sections of the DPA and FOIA.

Given the above, the only complaints information that we hold relates to our function as a Regulator. We do not, therefore, categorise complaints in the way that you have stipulated and are unable to conduct a search for that type of information.

You may find more information regarding the specific complaints information that you are looking for on the council’s own website or by contacting it directly.

With regard to the number of complaints that we have received relating to the councils that you have listed; please see attached CSV spreadsheet. This shows the councils you are interested in, listed by the number of completed items of casework in relation to the FOIA, the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) & the DPA with the date and recorded outcome.

Please also see attached definitions document explaining the recorded outcomes and their meaning. The way we recorded these changed in April 2014 and this document details the definitions prior to and since.

A point to note is that we may record more than one outcome on a case. For example, if we receive a FOIA complaint before the individual has requested an internal review from a public authority, that case will be closed on that basis but reopened if the individual returns to us following the outcome of the internal review. The case would be reopened at that point and then closed again at the conclusion of the investigation. Where there is more than one outcome on a case, these are grouped together for ease of reference. These closures appear as two separate items of casework but relate to the one matter.

The totals, taken from the attached spreadsheet in order of highest to lowest, are as follows:

Submitted about party Concerns Finished 157 Wigan Council 147 72 Rochdale Council 56 Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council 52 37 Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council 36 Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council 25 Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council 21 Bury Council 18 Grand Total 621

You have also asked for the information relating to open investigations. It is important to note that we are only able to provide a snap shot of the open cases that we have at any given time as this information can change as new cases are received and worked on. This being the case, it may be that we have received a concern or complaint regarding one of these councils that has not yet had the party added so will not be included in the number. Please see below table:

Submitted about party Concerns Open Manchester City Council 8 Salford City Council 5 Wigan Council 2 Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council 1 Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council 1 Bolton Council 0 Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council 0 Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council 0 Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council 0 Bury Council 0 Grand Total 17

This dataset was requested as part of a wider request, which has not been published. We have published the relevant part of the response.