Does the Information Commissioner's Office make public all of the decision notices that it serves in completed FOI/EIR complaint cases?

Until recently, I had assumed all decision notices were published on the ICO's website and discoverable via the search facility at icosearch.ico.org.uk.

Some decision notices do relate to sensitive matters that cannot be aired in public, but normally in those cases the ICO will make appropriate redactions. I cannot see any reason why a decision notice should be withheld entirely.


However, I recently scraped the ICO site for links to all decision notices served by the ICO for cases completed in 2022, based on the reference numbers in the ICO's own casework datasets.

Of the 1,150 decision notices listed as served in 2022, the vast majority have been published – but 30 seem to be missing. Searching for the case references on the ICO site produces a "no results found" message, and they are also not discoverable from a Google search.


Those missing decision notices are:

Case refPublic authorityCompleted date
IC-90889-X9T7BEIS17/10/2022
IC-109486-W2K4Waltham Forest LBC01/11/2022
IC-114852-X3N9Department for the Economy31/10/2022
IC-118792-Z1B9Cornwall Housing Limited11/10/2022
IC-118886-L6X2Crown Prosecution Service25/10/2022
IC-128396-J6Q7Thurrock Council24/11/2022
IC-145451-Z4N6Doncaster MBC17/10/2022
IC-148311-Z2Z2Royal Borough of Greenwich15/12/2022
IC-148751-C5B7ICO08/11/2022
IC-149059-D3T5HM Land Registry18/10/2022
IC-150527-K1Z4Rotherham MBC12/10/2022
IC-152075-P4F9East Cambridgeshire DC04/10/2022
IC-155297-G9B7Home Office21/06/2022
IC-155765-X1F0Steyning Parish Council19/10/2022
IC-157182-Y4G8Ballyclare Secondary School23/02/2022
IC-158189-J1R8Birmingham City Council09/12/2022
IC-159216-P5H3Department for the Economy03/11/2022
IC-159739-K1M7Barking and Dagenham LBC14/11/2022
IC-161402-X2K2Bexley LBC31/08/2022
IC-161830-Z1Y0Redcar and Cleveland BC18/11/2022
IC-163721-L8M3Mid and East Antrim BC31/05/2022
IC-164976-M3D8Chief Constable Lancashire Constabulary10/11/2022
IC-165469-L9N5Staffordshire University12/11/2022
IC-167774-S3X4NHS England21/12/2022
IC-171534-M6L5DVSA07/12/2022
IC-177289-X9W7Thorne Moorends Town Council28/11/2022
IC-179259-K9S3Thurrock Council24/11/2022
IC-179262-G3G2Thurrock Council24/11/2022
IC-192563-F5X0Civil Aviation Authority11/10/2022
IC-193763-K5F4Waltham Forest LBC31/10/2022


I also identified 11 decision notices for which the case reference does not return a result from the ICO's search facility, but a Google search does find a copy of the notice on the ICO site. The issue here seems to be that the search facility relies on the PDF file being named correctly:

Case refPublic authorityCompleted date
IC-156083-B2J8HM Land Registry27/09/2022
IC-194503-H9F3Croydon LBC31/10/2022
IC-176668-X1C0Defra01/11/2022
IC-104466-R4C7Cabinet Office08/11/2022
IC-152036-M2W3DWP08/11/2022
IC-161403-Y8F7Birmingham City University08/11/2022
IC-140661-C5H6Haringey LBC11/11/2022
IC-177325-V3T3Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust29/11/2022
IC-180262-Y0S1Brent LBC08/12/2022
IC-194854-X2S6Wiltshire Council13/12/2022
IC-173228-W7S1Enfield LBC19/12/2022


My best guess is that any non-publication of decision notices is the result of administrative errors at the ICO, rather than an intention to withhold the notices.


Update 28 May 2023: the ICO has acknowledged my post via Twitter and some of the missing decision notices highlighted below have now appeared on the ICO's website.