FOI complaints process

Com­plaints process

For gen­eral com­plaints, not related to a query under the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act (FOI) or Envi­ron­men­tal Infor­ma­tion Reg­u­la­tions (EIR), please see the Agency’s main com­plaints pro­ce­dure.

If you have a com­plaint about the response to your request for infor­ma­tion, there is an inter­nal process to address your concerns.

To start the process, write to the con­tact named in the response to your request, explain­ing your complaint.

We always aim to deal with com­plaints within 20 work­ing days of receipt.

Step 1

The per­son who han­dled the request orig­i­nally will recon­sider the han­dling of your request. If your com­plaint is upheld, we will:

  • Apol­o­gise and pro­vide any infor­ma­tion withheld
  • Re-evaluate the pro­cess­ing time to han­dle any request refused as too costly or man­i­festly unreasonable
  • Explain why some infor­ma­tion was with­held or why your request was refused in full

If the orig­i­nal deci­sions are upheld, there is a sec­ond evaluation:

The com­plaint is referred to a spe­cial­ist mem­ber of the Infor­ma­tion Strat­egy, Pol­icy and Assur­ance Team for re-consideration. This team is expe­ri­enced in FOI and EIR law and inde­pen­dent of the orig­i­nal han­dling team. In some cases it may be nec­es­sary to esca­late the com­plaint to a mem­ber of the senior man­age­ment group or the Depart­ment for Transport.

The reviewer will write to you con­cern­ing your com­plaint, and how they have decided to resolve the issue. If the orig­i­nal response is upheld, you may wish to use the next step in the com­plaints process:

Step 2

If your com­plaint is not upheld, or you feel your com­plaint has not been han­dled prop­erly, you have the right to com­plain to the Infor­ma­tion Com­mis­sioner who can be con­tacted at:

Infor­ma­tion Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilm­slow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Web­site: www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

This infor­ma­tion is also avail­able in leaflet form: