Post Office

Section 48 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) empowers the information Commissioner (the Commissioner) to issue a practice recommendation where it appears to him that a public authority has failed to conform, specifically, to the FOIA Codes of Practice. These failures are addressed in the recommendations section below. Section 47 of FOIA also makes clear that the Commissioner has a duty to promote the following of good practice beyond just the requirements of the Codes of Practice.

In July 2023, the Commissioner engaged with the Post Office, following concerns raised about its FOI performance. The Post Office proactively engaged with the Commissioner, acknowledging its drop in compliance due to an increase in FOI requests. For June - July 2023, the Post Office’s compliance rate was 52%. The Post Office’s performance steadily improved. In September 2023 it increased to 67%, in November 2023 to 84% and then in December 2023 to 90%. For the period of January – April 2024, it’s compliance once again fell to 50%.

The underlying reason behind the drop in compliance is due to an overwhelming increase in requests due to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry. The statutory inquiry has led to increased scrutiny of the Post Office in the media including extensive television coverage.

Despite the unique circumstances the Post Office faces, the Commissioner remains concerned that its compliance can steadily improve and then fall so significantly. The Commissioner has reached the view that the Post Office’s request handling practices do not conform to part 4 of the section 45 Freedom of Information Code of Practice, issued by the Cabinet Office in July 2018 (the Code).