Freedom of information statistics

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and response

The Financial Ombudsman Service has been subject to the Freedom of Information Act since November 2011. Our publication scheme provides a guide to the information that's available without the need to make a specific written request and we also publish statistical information about the requests we handle and how we respond.

The following table shows the number of requests we've handled and how we responded. We add information and update the table each quarter.

Applying exemptions

We aim to be as open and transparent as possible about the work we do, but there are times where it isn’t appropriate for us to share the information we hold in response to a Freedom of Information request. Where this is the case, we may apply an exemption. The Freedom of Information Act contains a number of exemptions that allow organisations to withhold information from a requestor. In some cases it allows organisations to refuse to confirm or deny whether they hold information.

In some circumstances, we will apply an exemption to part of a request or sometimes we may apply an exemption to the whole of a request. Sometimes we apply more than one exemption to a single request. You can read more about exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act on the Information Commissioner's website.

About the exemptions we applied in Q1 (April-June) 2020:

The most common exemption applied this quarter was section 40(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Applying section 40(1) means that we aren't able to provide the information because it relates to the requester's personal information. This is exempt because information released under the Act must be suitable for the public to see and because individuals have the right to obtain information about themselves through the Data Protection Act 2018 by making a subject access request. 

The second most common exemption applied was section 40(2). Section 40(2) means that we aren't able to provide the information because it relates to the personal information of third parties, such as staff members and other consumers, where releasing the information would breach one of the data protection principles. 

About the exemptions we applied in Q2 (July-September) 2020: 

The most common exemption applied in this quarter was section 8 and 14 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Applying section 8 means a request is not valid, because the requestor didn't give us a valid address to respond to, didn't use their real name or doesn't describe the information requested. Individuals can only ask for information held in a recorded format, not for opinion or commentary. Applying section 14 means the request is considered vexatious or is a repeated request. These exemptions were applied to one individual who made multiple requests and was not using the Act for the purpose it was intended. 

The second most common exemption applied was section 12. Section 12 means that we aren't able to provide the information because the time taken to find, locate or retrieve the information is likely to exceed the appropriate limit set out in the legislation, which for us is 18 hours.

Whenever we apply this exemption, we always try to provide the requestor with information that they may find helpful, as we already publish a lot of detail about what we do. For example, information on our website about our approach to the different types of complaints we see, or our database of ombudsman decisions where they can search for specific decisions we've published in relation to their area of interest.