ICO starts monitoring of Publication Schemes

The Information Commissioner has revealed details of those authorities who have received a ticking off for their Publication Schemes.

In January the Commissioner issued new guidance for authorities in relation to their Publication Schemes and said there would be a system put in place to ensure everybody was coming up to standard.

Following a Freedom of Information request to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) we now have a few more details of what that actually means. (link)

The first section that the ICO intends to monitor is central Government. The surveillance which started on April 20 will last for around four weeks and then a report will be prepared around mid-June.

After that it would appear that the ICO will move on to different sectors - I’m afraid I didn’t ask for a list to see who was top and bottom of the monitoring list. But from that timescale I presume that if you are a sector at the bottom it could well be well in 2010 before the ICO starts clicking on your website.

However, the ICO did reveal that a number of public authorities have been written to since January to get a telling off about their publication scheme. These organisations are Staffordshire Primary Care Trust, Royal Mail, Lancashire Police (please see comment), South Wales Police, Northern Ireland Legal Services Commission and the City and County of Swansea.

The ICO also said that the issue of improving the Publication Scheme had been raised verbally with Leeds City Council and the Metropolitan Police.

So remember the ICO is watching.