Official Statistics

Quality and Methodology Information

Updated 24 April 2024

Statistical enquiries: FOI Statistics

1. Summary

Freedom of Information (FOI) statistics cover the quantity and handling of FOI requests received by central government bodies under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) based on administrative data held by these bodies. These figures cover the status of requests that have been formally addressed under the FOI Act by 39 central government bodies, including all major departments of state. Requests for information received by these bodies that were responded to outside the Act (e.g. as correspondence, parliamentary questions, or business as usual) are not included.

To meet user needs, the publication series consists of a shorter quarterly publication providing provisional results covering the last three months, and an annual publication that includes additional context and final results for all quarters. These finalised results reflect any revision identified by departments as part of their ongoing FOI processing.

This document contains the following sections:

• Output quality
• About the output
• How the output is created
• Validation and quality assurance
• Coherence and comparability
• Concepts and definitions
• Other information, relating to quality trade-offs and user needs

Scope of the FOI act

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) states that (subject to certain conditions):

‘Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled—

(a) to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request, and

(b) if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him’

Regulation 5 of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) states that (subject to certain conditions):

‘A public authority that holds environmental information shall make it available on request.’

Following their introduction on 1 April 2005, the above provisions apply to all relevant requests for information made to public authorities, no matter how routine and straightforward they may be.

2. Output quality

This document provides a range of information that describes the quality of the data and details any points that should be noted when using the output.

ONS has developed guidelines for measuring statistical quality based upon the five European Statistical System (ESS) Quality dimensions. This document addresses these quality dimensions and other important quality characteristics, which are:

• Relevance
• Timeliness and punctuality
• Coherence and comparability
• Accuracy
• Output quality trade-offs
• Assessment of user needs and perceptions
• Accessibility and clarity More information is provided about these quality dimensions in the sections below.

To address the additional quality concerns associated with the use of administrative data in the production of National Statistics, the UK Statistics Authority has also developed Good practice guidance for using administrative data; and an Administrative Data Quality Assurance Toolkit.

Using the quality assurance self-assessment matrix in the toolkit, the FOI statistics have been rated as having a medium level of risk of quality concerns and a medium public interest profile, entailing an enhanced level of quality assurance (please see Appendix A for a full description of the QA matrix). The Cabinet Office FOI statistics team is confident that the quality assurance processes embedded in the production of these statistics and described in this document are of an appropriate level for the assessed risk.

3. About the output

3.1 Relevance

The degree to which statistical outputs meet users’ needs

Throughout the year provisional quarterly figures for FOI statistics are released on gov.uk. The Quarterly FOI Statistics publications consist of a statistical bulletin, summary data tables, and raw data. The statistics cover:

• the volume of requests received
• the timeliness of response
• the outcome of requests, and the exemptions used when information is withheld

The figures cover the previous three months, and may be revised at the annual publication.

The Annual FOI Statistics publication consists of a statistical bulletin, summary data tables, and raw data. The statistics cover:

• the volume of requests received
• the timeliness of response
• the outcome of requests
• the exemptions used when information is withheld
• the quantity and outcome of internal reviews & known complaints to the ICO for a decisions to release or withhold information
• the use of the public interest test extension

The figures cover the previous year, with revised figures from the quarterly collections where appropriate.

FOI statistics do not include:

• Requests for information that are not responded to under the FOI act, such as correspondence or business as usual
• Information on the contents of the FOI requests
• Requests received by the devolved governments and their agencies

The Cabinet Office (CO) leads on the Government policy for transparency and accountability, including FOI. Ministers and officials with responsibility for developing information access policy are a key user of FOI statistics, and use them to monitor the implementation of the FOI act by central government both as a whole and by each individual body included in the figures.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights, and uses the FOI statistics release as part of their monitoring process and regulatory function.

Government departmental FOI teams responsible for coordinating responses and requests both provide data for the collection and use the compiled figures to compare their performance across government.

Press and lobby groups use these figures to assess the performance of the monitored bodies, and reuse the data to provide additional commentary.

Other non-governmental bodies and individuals with an interest in the accessibility of government information also make use of the data.

3.2 Timeliness and punctuality

Timeliness refers to the lapse of time between publication and the period to which the data refer. Punctuality refers to the gap between planned and actual publication dates.

The proposed month of publication is announced on gov.uk at least twelve months in advance of publication. In the event of any changes to the pre-announced release schedule, the change and the reasons for it would be announced.

FOI statistics are compiled based on completed requests, and therefore the 20 working days allowed for responding to FOI requests must elapse before the data collection can begin. Monitored bodies are given a further three working weeks to finalise monitoring and generate the statistical information. The FOI statistics team at Cabinet Office then quality assures the data and produce the statistics which requires one month for the quarterly bulletin, and two months for the annual bulletin which involves additional data, outputs, and revisions – a breakdown of these timelines is shown in the table below. Publication is therefore 2.5 or 3.5 months after the end of the monitoring period.

The following timeline outlines the major steps in the production process for the quarterly and annual bulletins:

Timelines for the collection	Quarterly	Annual
End of the monitoring period - final working day of the quarter / year
Time elapsed due to the legislative response window for FOI responses	4 working weeks	4 working weeks
The data commission is sent to monitored bodies.
Monitored bodies finalise monitoring information, extract data and generate the statistical information, quality assure the figures, and obtain sign off from senior figures.	3 working weeks	3 working weeks
Deadline for responses from monitored bodies
Follow up on returns, query inconsistencies and revisions with departments.	1 week	2.5 weeks
Produce summary statistics and tables, quality assure figures	1 week	2 weeks
Final figures are returned to monitored bodies for validation and sign off
The bulletin is produced, all tables and figures are quality assured.	1 week	2.5 weeks
Documents are finalised and sent to publication team to be set up for access	½ week	½ week

As part of the production process, data suppliers are notified of the return deadlines in advance, and the collections team follows up with them over the course of the collection and production cycle. Publication of the bulletin has not been delayed since it transferred to the Cabinet Office in Q3 2015.

4. How the output is created

The statistics in the bulletin are derived from monitoring returns completed by Freedom of Information officers in government departments. The number of bodies covered is published each quarter.

The monitored bodies which are not Departments of State nonetheless have significant policymaking, regulatory or information-handling functions. As far as possible, this list includes major non-Ministerial Government Departments and excludes Executive Agencies. A full list of the bodies covered by the monitoring statistics is published in each bulletin, including agencies whose information requests are counted by their parent Department of State.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies to all public authorities across the UK, excepting those which have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, which fall under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. The Northern Ireland Office, the Wales Office, and the Scotland Office are included in these statistics. However, we have not collected formal monitoring data from the Welsh Assembly Government, or from the bodies that make up the Northern Ireland Civil Service. The implementation of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 lies outside the scope of the monitoring work on which this bulletin is based.

5. Validation and quality assurance

5.1 Accuracy

The degree of closeness between an estimate and the true value.

FOI statistics are derived from management information used by monitored bodies to handle responses to FOI requests. The key stages in the production of the statistics are outlined here, covering the stage of production, the potential sources of risk or error, and the steps taken at each stage to mitigate these potential risks.

Consideration should be given to the differences in handling procedures between departments, which may induce variation in the results. However the quality assurance in place at each stage of the production process ensure that these statistics are overall a robust measure of the handling of FOI requests by central government bodies.

Production processes

1. Information request received

Government bodies receive a wide range of information requests from private and business parties.

2. FOI requests recorded

The FOI act will be invoked if the requestor specifically mentions the FOI act, or the request is so complex as to require a formal FOI response. Requests that meet the definition of a FOI request will have a record created.

Potential source of risk or error

Requests meeting the definition may not be logged as an FOI request, or requests that do not fall under the act may be erroneously logged.

Risk / error mitigation

Monitored bodies have established policy and training for staff to raise awareness of the proper handling and referral of FOI requests. Within larger bodies, central processing units handle all incoming correspondence to help ensure consistency in monitoring.

3. Request handling

The government body will respond to the request as appropriate. For straightforward responses this may be handled by a central department, whereas more specific requests may be passed to the unit that holds the relevant information.

Potential source of risk or error

Handling of the request may be incorrectly or inconsistently recorded.

Risk / error mitigation

Staff with access to the system are trained in the appropriate coding of request handling; where a large number of operational staff access the system, entries may be quality assured and validated on a weekly or monthly basis; data may be used for internal monitoring reports which incentivises accurate and up-to-date record keeping.

4. Reporting / data extraction

Each quarter, the Cabinet Office collects summary statistics from the monitored bodies covering the number, outcome, and timeliness of response to FOI requests received in the preceding period. At the end of each year additional information is collected on internal reviews and complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Figures are reported using recorded information as at the point of monitoring.

Potential source of risk or error

The statistics generated from the data may be incorrect due to user error, or the required data not being available.

Risk / error mitigation

For some bodies validated automated reports are created that minimise user error in reporting; other bodies cross check the numbers with an independent data extraction; in general monitored bodies routinely collect the information required for monitoring as part of their standard processes.

Monitoring forms provided to departments include internal validation checks that cross-reference the values provided for each section to ensure consistency. Returns are not accepted until they satisfy these checks. Within the FOI statistics team each quarter’s returns are checked for internal consistency, and then cross checked against the previous returns for the body. Inconsistent or unusual values, as well as large changes from previous quarters or years, are queried with data suppliers.

5. Statistical publication production

Once the data set is finalised, the bulletin and accompanying tables and data set are produced.

Potential source of risk or error

Errors may be introduced during document production.

Risk / error mitigation

Each published document is independently verified by a statistician and any discrepancies resolved before being approved by the Head of Profession at the Cabinet Office; figures to be published for each monitored body are returned to that body for confirmation before proceeding with publication.

6. Cancelled requests and revisions

Amendments to published data may be submitted by monitored bodies at the annual review after further processing of the requests.

Potential source of risk or error

Revisions may significantly change the message of the published data.

Risk / error mitigation

Minor revisions are captured in the total figures provided for the annual collection; where a monitored body indicates that major revisions to the quarterly figures have occurred, amended quarterly returns are requested and updated tables and figures are produced in the annual bulletin. Amended figures are noted as such in the bulletin.

5.2 Revisions

As processing of FOI responses continues over the year, government bodies continue to update the monitoring data for the requests received in the first three quarters of the year. These updated figures are collected and reported as an annual total result in the yearly bulletin.

For example:

• Updates to the total volume of requests may occur when a request has been withdrawn, or has been reclassified as business as usual rather than an FOI request, which will be reflected in the annual total tables and figures
• Updates to processing details such as in the use of exemptions may occur after quality assurance reviews as part of the end of year collection, and will be reflected in the annual summary tables and figures.

If the updated annual total figures reflect significant changes to the previously published quarterly values, monitored bodies will be asked to submit amended quarterly data returns, and the revised figure will be published in the annual bulletin with a revision note.

Minor revisions will only be included in the annual total figures and as a result the quarter to quarter statistics will not always sum to the annual figures.

6. Coherence and comparability

Coherence is the degree to which data that are derived from different sources or methods, but refer to the same topic, are similar. Comparability is the degree to which data can be compared over time and domain – for example, geographic level.

Government departments supply large amounts of information, both on request and proactively, as an established and routine part of their business. This includes information released in the form of leaflets, correspondence exchanges, reports and other published material, and through websites and departmental FOI Publication Schemes. All information released on request is covered by the Freedom of Information Act. However, it would be both uninformative and fundamentally unfeasible to count all such activity in departmental Freedom of Information monitoring returns.

The statistics in this bulletin therefore relate to all ‘non-routine’ information requests that government departments have received, and those routine information requests that are handled under Section 21. Essentially, this means that departments’ statistics should only count those requests where:

1) It was necessary to take a considered view on how to handle the request under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, and

2) Departmental Freedom of Information officer(s) were informed of the request and logged it in their case management systems. The full definition of an ‘information request’ for the purposes of inclusion in the Cabinet Office’s monitoring returns is shown below. This definition was circulated to members of the central government ‘Freedom of Information Practitioners’ Group’ in November 2004.

‘[An information request for monitoring purposes is one …]

1) Which meets the criteria in section 8 of the Freedom of Information Act and if the request falls under the Environmental Information Regulations it includes requests made in any form or context, including oral requests; and

2) Which is a request for information that is not already reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means; and

(i) Which results in the release of one or more documents (in any media) or inclusion of extracts of documents in the information released; or

(ii) Results in information being withheld under an exemption or exception from the right of access (either the Freedom of Information Act or the Environmental Information Regulations); or

(iii) The request is not processed because the department estimates the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit in accordance with section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act; or

(iv) The request is not processed because the department is relying on the provisions of section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act; or (v) Where a search is made for information sought in the request and it is found that none is held.’

It is necessary to apply a definition of this sort in order to set a clear boundary to the coverage of our monitoring, and thereby obtain meaningful information from the process. The definition shown above has been widely disseminated to Freedom of Information officers in government.

However, there is considerable variation in the way these bodies are structured and managed, and in the mechanisms that they have put in place to meet their obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. For example, some bodies operate a centralised Freedom of Information secretariat that co-ordinates responses to all information requests received. Others give a greater degree of autonomy to individual work areas in the handling of information requests.

Because of these differences, there could be a degree of inconsistency in the way in which bodies have interpreted and applied the definition of an ‘information request’ for monitoring purposes. However, the statistics effectively count those requests which have been dealt with by each monitored body formally under the FOI Act. As such, the statistics report on how many such requests for information each monitored body has received and how they have implemented the Act’s requirements in providing responses. Direct comparisons between the statistics for different monitored bodies can therefore be made on this basis.

Time series data are available going back to 2005, and are comparable to the current collection.

Several of the monitored bodies publish information released under FOI requests, or lists of requests and outcomes on gov.uk. These publications do not include all monitored FOI requests, and so are not directly comparable with the figures in the FOI Statistics bulletin, however they may include additional detail not available in the published figures.

The website WhatDoTheyKnow provides an online record of all requests made through their website. These records are not directly comparable with those in the FOI Statistics bulletin as the requests listed on the site do not always meet the criteria for monitoring as FOI requests (for example, some may be responded to as business as usual) and so are not included in the published statistics.

A comparison to international regimes of information access was published by the independent commission on FOI:

Information on ICO Decision notices are published on their website.

Comparable reporting on the handling of FOI requests for the devolved government bodies can be found at:

Scottish Government

Welsh Government

Northern Ireland Assembly

7. Concepts and definitions

Concepts and definitions describe the legislation governing the output and a descriptions of the classification used in the output.

The figures in the FOI statistics bulletin relate to the handling of requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. FOI requests, timeliness in response, public interest tests, and exemptions and exceptions are defined in this legislation and are briefly summarised here.

The full text of the FOI Act can be found here.

The full text of the EIR can be found here.

7.1 FOI requests

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) states that (subject to certain conditions):

‘Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled—

(a) to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request, and

(b) if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him’

Regulation 5 of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 states that (subject to certain conditions):

‘A public authority that holds environmental information shall make it available on request.’

Following their introduction on 1 April 2005, the above provisions apply to all relevant requests for information made to public authorities, no matter how routine and straightforward they may be.

8. Other information

8.1 Output quality trade-offs

Trade-offs are the extent to which different dimensions of quality are balanced against each other.

In producing the FOI statistics the timeliness of the publications must be balanced against the quality of the data produced. Users have a need for statistics to be produced as soon as possible after the end of the reference period in order to ensure their relevance. However, as outlined in the section on timelines and punctuality considerable time is dedicated to quality assuring the final values in order to mitigate potential sources of error. The FOI statistics team have reviewed these timelines and concluded that the timeframes are the minimum required to produce the statistics at a National Statistics level, given the involvement of multiple producers and data suppliers at several stages of the process.

8.2 Assessment of user needs and perceptions

The processes for finding out about uses and users, and their views on the statistical products.

In order to engage with both known and potential users our engagement strategy includes both active and passive elements, allowing both structured engagement with known users and open lines of communication for potential new users. Unstructured feedback has proved useful in identifying particular issues with the bulletin, while structured feedback is essential in setting out the areas for development that will address broad user needs.

A user feedback survey was carried out as part of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) assessment of the National Statistics designation of these statistics, published in July 2016 . Seven external users and nine data suppliers were contacted, and a summary of their responses was provided to the Cabinet Office FOI statistics team. These responses were used to identify areas for improvement in the development plan for 2016.

While developing our data quality assessment, we conducted face to face meetings with six data suppliers in February 2017, as part of which we requested feedback on their user experience. All data suppliers have also been given the opportunity to provide feedback as part of an online survey developed from these meetings.

After completion of the development plan for each year with the annual publication, a survey of known users asking for feedback on the changes made and future areas for improvement will be carried out. These responses will be used to identify areas for improvement in the next development cycle.

User feedback is solicited on the landing page for FOI statistics on gov.uk, with contact details provided. All FOI statistics bulletins include a request for feedback with contact details provided for the team.

A list of known users is maintained, including which statistical outputs they use and the use made of them.

8.3 Accessibility and clarity

Accessibility is the ease with which users are able to access the data, also reflecting the format in which the data are available and the availability of supporting information. Clarity refers to the quality and sufficiency of the release details, illustrations and accompanying advice.

The different users of these statistics have a range of needs in terms of presentation of the results, and we therefore provide multiple formats for use:

• Headline results, trends, and discussion are provided in a statistical bulletin in HTML format, which summarises the data with explanatory graphs and figures for general
• Key figures across monitored bodies are shown in tables of results covering volumes, timeliness, and outcomes in both ODS and HTML formats in a consistent, accessible, and reusable
• The underlying data is provided in csv (comma-separated value) format to facilitate reuse (providing 3 stars on the Open Data plan)

9. Appendix A: Quality assurance of administrative data toolkit results

In using administrative data rather than purpose collected data to produce statistics there are particular additional quality concerns that may arise. To aid statistical producers in assessing the risk of these issues and developing an appropriate response the UK Statistics Authority has produced an Administrative Data Quality Assurance Toolkit.

This toolkit provides a framework for assessing the necessary level of quality assurance across two dimensions in the following risk / profile matrix:

Level of risk of quality concerns	Public interest profile - Lower	Public interest profile - Medium	Public interest profile - Higher
Low	Statistics of lower quality concern and lower public interest [A1]	Statistics of low quality concern and medium public interest [A1/A2]	Statistics of low quality concern and higher public interest [A1/A2]
Medium	Statistics of medium quality concern and lower public interest [A1/A2]	Statistics of medium quality concern and medium public interest [A2]	Statistics of medium quality concern and higher public interest [A2/A3]
High	Statistics of higher quality concern and lower public interest [A1/A2/A3]	Statistics of higher quality concern and medium public interest [A3]	Statistics of higher quality concern and higher public interest [A3]

On the first dimension, the Cabinet Office FOI statistics team has assessed these statistics as being at a medium level of risk of quality concerns. The risk of data quality issues is increased by the number of collection bodies involved, and mitigated by the established procedures for collection and quality control, as discussed in the section on validation and quality assurance in this document. The public interest profile of these statistics has also been assessed as a medium risk, due to the moderate political sensitivity of the results, and user and media interest.

The requisite level of quality assurance for this level of risk is A2: Enhanced assurance. This covers four practice areas associated with data quality, which are covered in this document as follows:

1) Operational context and admin data collection – our evaluation of the administrative data QA arrangements is discussed under ‘Validation and quality assurance’.

2) Communication with data supply partners – details of the collection arrangements are covered in the sections ‘Timeliness and punctuality’, ‘Accuracy’, and ‘Assessment of user needs and perceptions’.

3) QA principles, standards and checks by data suppliers – the data quality assurance and audit processes of suppliers are discussed in steps 2 to 4 of the production processes under ‘Validation and quality assurance’.

4) Producers’ QA investigations and documentation – our data quality assurance processes are discussed in steps 4 to 6 of the production processes under ‘Validation and quality assurance’ and in the section on ‘Revisions’.