Ministry of Justice: Freedom of Information

(asked on 1st September 2023) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the average time taken by his Department to respond to freedom of information requests in the 2022-23 financial year.


Answered by
Mike Freer Portrait
Mike Freer
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 11th September 2023

The Ministry of Justice handles Freedom of Information requests in accordance with the legislation and the Information Commissioner’s Office’s (ICO) guidance.

The Ministry of Justice receives some of the highest volumes of FOI requests compared to other government departments and consistently meets the ICO’s timeliness target of 90% and above. In the last five years, the Ministry of Justice has only fallen below the target in one quarter.

In 2022, the Department received 4,406 FOI requests – the third highest across government departments. Of these 90% were responded to within the statutory deadline of 20 working days.

To end June 2023 the MoJ has received 2,599 FOI requests and has responded to 93% of them within the statutory deadline.

Despite consistently meeting the ICO’s timeliness targets, the department keeps processes under review. This includes running regular training and awareness sessions with departmental officials on the importance of the FOI regime and its obligations.

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