Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the average time taken by his Department to respond to freedom of information requests in the 2022-23 financial year.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) reports National Statistics on FOI request timeliness which is published here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics#2022

The department responded to 86.5% of all requests received within the timeframe set out in the legislation for financial year 2022-23, this is an improvement on the previous financial year.

The MOD operates a devolved system to answer FOI requests. There is a centralised FOI policy team dedicated to working with teams across Defence and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), to find ways to drive improvement performance. This includes delivery of regular training sessions and meetings to share best practices and highlight the importance of answering requests in a compliant and timely manner.

The MOD aims to meet our obligations under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act which states all requests should be answered within 20-working days.

The Department monitors performance against the timeliness targets set out by the Information Commissioners Office monthly and reports to the Defence Board on a quarterly basis.