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ICO Ref: FS50256736
PA Ref: 10041
By email: x@x
5 November 2009
ICO Ref:FS50256736
PA Ref: 10041
Dear Mr Moisiu,
Complaint about the Home Office
I write further to your complaint concerning
the failure of the Home Office to review its
refusal of your information request of 11
August 2008.
Following the
involvement of this office, I understand
that Mr L of the Home Office has now
provided you with correspondence informing
you of the outcome of its internal review.
Given that the original scope of your
complaint has now been addressed, we would
consider this case closed.
If, however, you are dissatisfied with the
Home Office’s response, you would be welcome
to return to us. We would then look to carry
out an investigation into the position taken
by the Home Office, although this would be
allocated a new case reference number to
mark the change in scope of the complaint.
For your information, while this particular
case will be closed, I would note our
awareness of the procedural issues connected
with the Home Office’s handling of the
complaint. In the first instance, it is
clear that the Home Office failed to provide
an initial response to your information
request within the twenty working days
stipulated by section 10(1) of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000. Furthermore,
despite being requested by you, the Home
Office did not carry out an internal review
of its refusal until the intervention of the
Information Commissioner.
In view of the Home Office’s deficient
processing of your request, I will be
informing the Good Practice and Enforcement
team of this case. They undertake the
broader exercise of monitoring longer-term
compliance with the Act and its associated
Codes of Practice and will form their own
judgements on how to proceed with their
considerations.
If the Enforcement team chooses not to take
any action at this time, it will, at the
very least, log the issues raised and
monitor any future complaints made to the
ICO about this particular public authority.
You will not be contacted directly to be
informed of what, if any, action the
Enforcement team intends to take.
On a separate note, I realise that Mr L has
identified, and is currently in the course
of responding to, the revised request
included in your correspondence of 31
January 2009. This asked the Home Office the
following:
“Has any
organisation in the British media been
restricted by any organ of the British
Government from freely and fairly disclosing
anything pertaining to the principal
investigation as documented in the case file
released by the Portuguese authorities on 4
August 2008?”
Again, if you are dissatisfied with the Home
Office’s response to the request, you would
be entitled to ask the Information
Commissioner to adjudicate on this matter.
However, as this would represent a fresh
request, you would need to exhaust the Home
Office’s complaints procedure before
referring the complaint to us. This would
then be treated as a distinct case by us.
Yours sincerely,
A J
(FOI) Complaints Officer
Tel: 01625 545 739 |
