As part of the annual Right to Know Week events, the Information Commissioner’s Office has published the 2016 Annual Statistics Report on Freedom of Information. The Report is based on requests registered and tracked in the central FOI tracking system which is used by the majority of Information Managers (IMs) across the Public Sector, and provides key statistics on the use of FOI from January 2009, when the Law came into effect, to June 2016.

A few highlights from the 2016 Annual FOI Statistics:

– After receiving a record number of requests in the previous year (702), in 2015-16 only 404 requests were made. This represents a decrease of 42%, and is 37% lower than the average annual figure in all previous years.

– Once again, the Immigration Department topped the public authorities with the most requests in the year (122);

– In 2015-16 only 34% of requests were answered outside the standard 30-calendar day period, and the median average response time was 20 days. This is a significant improvement over the previous years. In 2014-15 the median response was 31 days;

– In 2015-16 the proportion of requests granted in full (i.e. in which the applicant receives full disclosure of the requested information) improved from 39% (2014-15) to 45% (2015-16).

Pointing to a number of potentially contributing factors, the Acting Information Commissioner, Mr. Jan Liebaers, called the significant drop in requests surprising, saying “the ICO is not able to explain this drop, which could be both good news and bad news”.

Mr. Liebaers also recognized the positive development of response times and full disclosure, saying “The ICO commends the government and in particular Information Managers for the improvements in these areas over the last year, and thanks the Deputy Governor for his positive engagement. We hope to see a continued trend of shorter response times because, as is quoted in many FOI jurisdictions worldwide, ‘access delayed is access denied’.”

The public is encouraged to read the full text of the ICO’s Annual Statistics Report which can be found on the ICO website at http://www.infocomm.ky/document-library .