What do I need to do before I complain?
You can complain to the ICO about the way a public authority has handled your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI), Environmental Information Regulation (EIR) or the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 (RPSI).
Before you complain to us you need to have:
- followed up with the public authority, if you have not received a response after 20 working days; or
- complained to them (also known as requesting an internal review), if you are not happy with their response.
If you do not follow these steps before you submit your complaint, we will ask you to do so and may not accept your complaint.
If you want to raise a complaint with us about a public authority’s handling of your request for information, then we ask that you do so within six weeks of receiving your final response or last substantive contact with the public authority. Waiting longer than this can affect the decisions we reach. In most cases an undue delay will mean that we will not consider the matter at all. If the public authority has not provided you with an initial response to your request, then you are asked to provide us with evidence that you have attempted to resolve this issue directly with the public authority in the first instance.