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Operational performance

Operational performance

This page provides information about how we measure, monitor and report our performance.

Find out more about our operational performance

The Scottish Information Commissioner's functions, and the powers required to discharge those functions, are derived from Scotland's freedom of information legislation - specifically, the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, the Environmental Information Regulations (Scotland) (EIRs) and the INSPIRE (Scotland) Regulations 2009. The Commissioner enforces and promotes the rights created by these pieces of legislation, and these pages provide information on how the Commissioner is doing.

On this part of our site you will find information about:

  • Setting Objectives and Targets
  • Performance Reporting/Operational Reports
  • Caseload (Dashboard) Reports
  • Annual Reports 
Setting objectives and targets

As a Scottish public authority, the Scottish Information Commissioner is accountable to taxpayers for delivering functions economically, efficiently and effectively. The Commissioner has set out the overall approach to delivery of those functions in a four-year Strategic Plan 2024-2028. This plan is published, and shared with the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body.

Each year, the Commissioner also publishes an Operational Plan - the annual programme of activity which will be delivered over the year, in pursuit of the key strategic themes in the four-year plan. The Operational Plan contains details of all planned activities along with targets/success measures and timescales.

View current and past plans here. 

Performance reporting

The Commissioner regularly reports on the progress against Operational Plan objectives. A 'Dashboard' of caseload and investigations performance statistics is also published quarterly. You can download the Commissioner's Operational Plan Monitoring Reports and Dashboard Reports below.

Operational Plan Monitoring Reports

These reports are published once they have been signed off by the Commissioner - usually after a Senior Management Team meeting.

Caseload 'Dashboard' Reports

These reports include statistics showing the number of cases against the targets set at the beginning of each financial year. There are also statistics on the length of investigations, against the targets set. Annual caseload statistics appear in the Annual Reports of the Scottish Information Commissioner.

Annual reports

Under Section 46 of the FOI Act, the Commissioner must lay an annual report before the Scottish Parliament. The Commissioner's Annual Reports typically include commentary from the Commissioner, reflecting on the previous year and setting out priorities for the coming year. They also include a broad compendium of performance statistics, including annual trends, and other statistical data relating to freedom of information in Scotland e.g. from quarterly submissions by authorities and from research the Commissioner has commissioned from time to time.