Thursday 30 October 2014

Have the First Minister and Deputy First Minister fallen off the wagon again?

Last year, Northern Ireland's Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister  were doing so badly at Freedom of Information requests that the UK Information Commissioner's Office listed them as one of the agencies which were under special monitoring. So how did that work out? Not so well, it seems ...


In December 2012, FOIreland reported on the very poor state of responses to FOI requests by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) in Northern Ireland. Many requests were overdue, some for nearly a year.

Evidently, we weren't the only people who noticed this. Shortly after we reported, the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) announced that they would be monitoring the OFMDFM to check their compliance.

That was in early 2013. So what happened? Here's a graph that shows the Office's quarterly responses by percentage answered on time / overdue. Can you spot the ICO's 3-month monitoring period?

Looks like the First Minister and Deputy First Minister were good boys for three months. But when the headmaster's back was turned, it was back to smoking behind the bike sheds ...