Does the Information Commissioner's Office make public all of the decision notices that it serves in completed FOI/EIR complaint cases?
Until recently, I had assumed all decision notices were published on the ICO's website and discoverable via the search facility at icosearch.ico.org.uk.
Some decision notices do relate to sensitive matters that cannot be aired in public, but normally in those cases the ICO will make appropriate redactions. I cannot see any reason why a decision notice should be withheld entirely.
However, I recently scraped the ICO site for links to all decision notices served by the ICO for cases completed in 2022, based on the reference numbers in the ICO's own casework datasets.
Of the 1,150 decision notices listed as served in 2022, the vast majority have been published – but 30 seem to be missing. Searching for the case references on the ICO site produces a "no results found" message, and they are also not discoverable from a Google search.
Those missing decision notices are:
Case ref | Public authority | Completed date |
---|---|---|
IC-90889-X9T7 | BEIS | 17/10/2022 |
IC-109486-W2K4 | Waltham Forest LBC | 01/11/2022 |
IC-114852-X3N9 | Department for the Economy | 31/10/2022 |
IC-118792-Z1B9 | Cornwall Housing Limited | 11/10/2022 |
IC-118886-L6X2 | Crown Prosecution Service | 25/10/2022 |
IC-128396-J6Q7 | Thurrock Council | 24/11/2022 |
IC-145451-Z4N6 | Doncaster MBC | 17/10/2022 |
IC-148311-Z2Z2 | Royal Borough of Greenwich | 15/12/2022 |
IC-148751-C5B7 | ICO | 08/11/2022 |
IC-149059-D3T5 | HM Land Registry | 18/10/2022 |
IC-150527-K1Z4 | Rotherham MBC | 12/10/2022 |
IC-152075-P4F9 | East Cambridgeshire DC | 04/10/2022 |
IC-155297-G9B7 | Home Office | 21/06/2022 |
IC-155765-X1F0 | Steyning Parish Council | 19/10/2022 |
IC-157182-Y4G8 | Ballyclare Secondary School | 23/02/2022 |
IC-158189-J1R8 | Birmingham City Council | 09/12/2022 |
IC-159216-P5H3 | Department for the Economy | 03/11/2022 |
IC-159739-K1M7 | Barking and Dagenham LBC | 14/11/2022 |
IC-161402-X2K2 | Bexley LBC | 31/08/2022 |
IC-161830-Z1Y0 | Redcar and Cleveland BC | 18/11/2022 |
IC-163721-L8M3 | Mid and East Antrim BC | 31/05/2022 |
IC-164976-M3D8 | Chief Constable Lancashire Constabulary | 10/11/2022 |
IC-165469-L9N5 | Staffordshire University | 12/11/2022 |
IC-167774-S3X4 | NHS England | 21/12/2022 |
IC-171534-M6L5 | DVSA | 07/12/2022 |
IC-177289-X9W7 | Thorne Moorends Town Council | 28/11/2022 |
IC-179259-K9S3 | Thurrock Council | 24/11/2022 |
IC-179262-G3G2 | Thurrock Council | 24/11/2022 |
IC-192563-F5X0 | Civil Aviation Authority | 11/10/2022 |
IC-193763-K5F4 | Waltham Forest LBC | 31/10/2022 |
I also identified 11 decision notices for which the case reference does not return a result from the ICO's search facility, but a Google search does find a copy of the notice on the ICO site. The issue here seems to be that the search facility relies on the PDF file being named correctly:
Case ref | Public authority | Completed date |
---|---|---|
IC-156083-B2J8 | HM Land Registry | 27/09/2022 |
IC-194503-H9F3 | Croydon LBC | 31/10/2022 |
IC-176668-X1C0 | Defra | 01/11/2022 |
IC-104466-R4C7 | Cabinet Office | 08/11/2022 |
IC-152036-M2W3 | DWP | 08/11/2022 |
IC-161403-Y8F7 | Birmingham City University | 08/11/2022 |
IC-140661-C5H6 | Haringey LBC | 11/11/2022 |
IC-177325-V3T3 | Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust | 29/11/2022 |
IC-180262-Y0S1 | Brent LBC | 08/12/2022 |
IC-194854-X2S6 | Wiltshire Council | 13/12/2022 |
IC-173228-W7S1 | Enfield LBC | 19/12/2022 |
My best guess is that any non-publication of decision notices is the result of administrative errors at the ICO, rather than an intention to withhold the notices.
Update 28 May 2023: the ICO has acknowledged my post via Twitter and some of the missing decision notices highlighted below have now appeared on the ICO's website.