DfE, criticised by Information Commissioner for failing to process FOI requests quickly enough, fails to publish its response in time for deadline

The Department for Education has failed to hit a deadline, given to it by the Information Commissioner’s Office , to publish a document spelling out how it will improve its handling of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

The revelation comes with a request sent by this website for information in relation to a government phonics initiative having not been responded to by the DfE within legally-stipulated limits, despite the department stating that it was improving its practices against the background of pressure from the ICO.

The detail

The DfE was criticised back in February by the Information Commissioner, John Edwards, about its handling of FOI requests. Mr Edwards’ office, the ICO, issued a series of recommendations as part of a document which highlighted the department’s “declining” statistics in handling requests within the legal time limit.

Under the FOI Act, public bodies must respond to requests for information within 20 working days. However, the ICO found, as of the end of last year, the DfE was responding within this legal timescale only in three quarters of cases. This itself was down from 80 per cent in 2020-22.

The ICO’s response added: “DfE is taking action, however, and has reported that senior level interest in FOIA has had a positive impact on its performance recently…The Commissioner’s staff have engaged with DfE about the underlying reasons for its failure to lift its overall response rate to an acceptable and sustained level of compliance. Improvements have been made as outlined above and early data from 2024 has seen performance creep up to 81%. Given the timeliness issues DfE has experienced over what is now a prolonged period, however, it’s clear that DfE’s request handling practices does [sic] not consistently conform to the…Freedom of Information Code of Practice.”