Half-job Jo skips the ICO

Carmarthenshire County Council managed to land a puff piece in the South Wales Guardian, suggesting complaints were down in 2018-19 compared to a year earlier. Drill down a little and it seems complaints to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales had more than doubled (23->48) for the same period.

Complaints going "up a level" are quite exceptional. It takes a robust mindset to "exhaust" the Council's own complaint and review procedures before the PSOW will consider even accepting a case, let alone investigate. A Council officer is quoted as saying:

"The positive is that none of them were upheld."

Curiously, none of the five Decision Notices issued by the Information Commissioner's Office in the same period were referenced in the report. Four of which were upheld (in part or whole). How odd.

ICO Decision Notices tend to be only issued when a complainant specifically requests one - as the Information Commissioner is very busy and the backlog within her Office is typically 2-4 months to get a case first assigned. Investigations can easily stretch to well over a year, by which point many complainants have given up. However, the ICO is very clear that a Complaint should register long before they rule:

Links here for the "Compliments & Complaints Annual Report 2018/19", the ICO's "Action we've taken" in relation to Carmarthenshire County Council and the ICO's "Section 45 - Code Of Practice - request handling".

Image credits:
Business photo created by kjpargeter - www.freepik.com
Carmarthenshire County Hall cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Nigel Davies - geograph.org.uk/p/23208
Lovingly munged with the GIMP