ICO Wants To See Performance Awards

A data protection and publication performance assessment regime - similar to Audit Commission and Ofsted inspections of councils and schools - has been discussed at the highest levels of the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).

Speaking exclusively to Public Servant, Christopher Graham said there was pressure to introduce a high-profile system of ratings for public bodies detailing examples of good performance to counter the many negative stories.

'It was put to me at our recent management board meeting that although we emphasise the educator rather than the enforcer role - with good regulators being both - can't we do something that is a bit more box office?,' he revealed.

'So they are kicking around the idea of the Oscars for bodies that do well on data protection and Freedom of Information. At the moment all you ever hear about is people leaving laptops on trains and no one gets any credit for running a really tight ship.

'It certainly made me think, although we have our work cut out at the moment without becoming a sort of impresario for a Hollywood-style awards ceremony. But the performance assessment regime has worked well in local government as councils aspired to become beacon authorities in the same way that schools are keen to say that they did well in their Ofsted inspections. However, I don't want to commit to a similar scheme run by the ICO just yet.'

In Whitehall, a third of departments were judged last summer to be failing to meet ICO guidelines on proactive publication of data, and local government performance is also patchy on placing expenses of senior officials and minutes of meetings online. Top performing government departments included the Department for International Development and the Department for Transport. Graham said that others were not doing so well, but insisted that the ICO was working to improve standards.

'Expenses for senior public figures ought to be in the public domain and it is becoming quite routine that one's expenses get stuck up on the website - and very boring they are too,' he added. 'But it is a corrective to any temptation to be obliged to somebody who is trying to do you a favour.'