The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has been served with a formal Enforcement Notice by the Information Commissioner for the second time in two years after continued failures to meet statutory deadlines under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
The Information Commissioner’s notice, issued under section 52 FOIA, follows the MPS’s persistent inability to meet the requirement of the FOIA to respond to information requests within 20 working days (section 10(1) FOIA).
According to the ICO, the MPS ended 2025 with a compliance rate of 69.44%, marginally improving to 70.81% by mid‑February 2026. The Commissioner notes that the MPS has never exceeded 75.9% compliance since FOIA came into force in 2005. This falls short of the Commissioner’s required minimum 90% “in‑time” compliance rate.
Although the force has reduced its backlog significantly over the past year, overall timeliness remains well below the legally expected standard. This notice follows an earlier Enforcement Notice issued in May 2024, which required the force to clear a backlog of 362 overdue FOI cases and publish an action plan.
Although the MPS complied with that notice, performance did not improve sustainably. Monitoring throughout 2025 showed compliance remained “below 70%”, despite the introduction of new forecasting tools, process improvements, and the recruitment of additional staff. The force continues to face fluctuating monthly demand- ranging from 530 requests in June 2025 to 728 in October 2025, as well as increased request volumes over several years.
The Commissioner emphasised that the MPS’s compliance remains “far removed” from both statutory requirements and the minimum standards set out in the ICO’s Timeliness Toolkit.
The Commissioner’s key concerns included over 100 overdue cases as of 13 February 2026, an inability to commit to achieving 90% compliance within any timeframe and the MPS’s historical non‑compliance dating back to 2005.
The Enforcement Notice set out three mandatory steps, with deadlines, that the MPS must achieve:
By 1 October 2026: No FOI requests open more than 20 working days beyond receipt, excluding those with valid public interest extensions.
By 1 April 2027: Achieve an average 90% “in‑time” compliance rate across January–March 2027.
By 1 October 2027: Achieve a minimum 90% monthly compliance rate from April–September 2027.
Failure to comply allows the Commissioner to certify the matter to the High Court, where the MPS could be treated as if in contempt of court. The MPS may appeal to the First‑tier Tribunal (Information Rights) within 28 days.
A spokesperson for the Met said: "The ICO rightly acknowledges the hard work of Met staff for the improvements made so far.
"We take our FOIA obligations seriously and we are investing in new technologies to help reduce the burden on staff and improve performance.
"We are engaging with the ICO to discuss these challenges, against the backdrop of tough choices we have made to plug a £260million funding gap, while protecting frontline policing and keeping communities safe."
