Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average response time to subject access requests was by their Department in the latest period for which data is available; and if they will make an assessment of the adequacy of that response time.

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

The timescales for responding to a subject access request is within one calendar month, although timescales for certain, complex cases can be extended under the legislation for a further two months.

The latest period for which performance data is available is April-June 2023. During this period, the Ministry received 2,046 subject access requests. We responded to 1851 within the legal deadline of 30 days set by the ICO and the average response time was 24 days.

This is in line with legislation and is a metric which the department consistently seeks to achieve and improve.