Vol. 576 No. 6
21 Ms Lynch asked the Minister for Finance the progress made to date with regard to efforts to clear the backlog of appeals in the Office of the Information Commissioner; the number of appeals outstanding at the latest date for which figures are available; the average time being taken to hear an appeal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30089/03]
I understand that the Information Commissioner's Office adopted new working procedures in April 2002 for dealing with review applications, appeals and historical review cases. All cases received from that time would be dealt with immediately while cases received prior to April 2002 would be processed alongside current cases. At that stage, the commissioner envisaged that the arrears cases would be dealt with over a three year period. I understand that this arrangement worked quite well initially but has now been affected by a significant increase in new review applications being received in the course of this year, 2003, and the office is now reconsidering its targets in relation to clearing arrears cases. The commissioner's office is currently preparing a statement of strategy for the three year period 2004-2006 in which it will develop new business plans to address, inter alia, the issue of the backlog of pre-April 2002 cases.
The rate of completion of reviews has been increased significantly this year, by about 32% by comparison with 2002. However, because of a substantial increase in the level of review applications this year, the number of cases on hands has increased. At the end of November 2003 there were 870 cases on hands in the office of the Information Commissioner that had been accepted for review compared with 611 such cases at the end of November 2002.
As the commissioner is dealing with reviews in two streams, current cases as well as older cases, any average figure would need to be treated with caution. Figures are not currently available for the average time taken to conclude reviews. However, she hopes to give fuller details of completion timetables in her annual report for 2003.
