Britain’s invisible Information Commissioner

Much like the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the post of Information Commissioner is one of those intriguingly named but largely under-explored positions in British public life. Created in 1984, the post brings with it a tidy £200,000 a year salary and an office comprised of more than 500 staff. Its job is to ‘uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.’ You might therefore think that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) would be interested in freedom of information given that the existing legislation – which came into force in 2005 – is being undermined by secrecy-loving Whitehall departments.

Not a bit of it. For today the enthusiasts over at the Campaign for Freedom of Information have totted up just how many times the ICO has spoken out on freedom of information (FOI) in two years. They analysed all speeches, statements, news items and blogs published on the ICO website in 2020 and 2021 and found that Elizabeth Denham, the then commissioner, had not given a speech on the subject in over two years. None of the ICO’s 54 statements during the period focussed on FOI, with only 3 per cent of news items focussing on it. In total, just 8 per cent of the items analysed focussed on the ICO’s FOI responsibilities. Denham, of course, may well have been distracted, both by the ICO’s preference for talking about data protection and her decision to relocate to Canada mid-pandemic.

The commissioner quietly packed up and moved 3,500 miles away to a country a mere six hours behind the UK’s time zone, with obvious consequences for working practices. The move was, ironically, only discovered after a freedom of information request revealed her unconventional hours. Denham has now been replaced by Kiwi John Edwards: will he show any more interest in delivering on the ICO’s brief? Given the number of scandals which freedom of information has helped expose – including, of course those MPs’ expenses – let’s hope there’s more of an appetite in Whitehall to uphold the existing law in future.