My Lords, although the amendment’s wording is narrow, it is very much a probing amendment. I hope we will be able to range a bit further on the funding and the structure of the Information Commissioner’s Office, which depends on its ability to raise funding to survive. I will make various points on that.
In some senses the Information Commissioner’s Office is a rather strange regulator, in terms not of its functions, but of the way it has survived a number of possibilities for change and development that have been applied to other sectors of British industry, particularly those relating in some senses to data processing. If noble Lords compare Oftel, the IBM, to some extent the BBC and what has now emerged as Ofcom, they will see a change from the original structure of regulators, which were very largely bodies set up to make sure the previously public sector nature of an activity that had been privatised was done in a way that did not exclude the public interest. These regulators were largely economic in origin and have only gradually added social regulation to their parts.
In a sense the ICO’s journey is different. First, the way these other regulators have moved has not been followed, so the change from a one-off individual dealing with economic and a limited amount of social regulation to being partnerships or boards with a range of individuals appointed to take over various functions—Ofcom is perhaps the easiest example to use—has not been followed. We still have a single regulator which is independent and reports to Parliament, and I understand the structure to be that of a corporation sole, which is an issue that we might want to reflect on.
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In saying this, I make no criticism of the ICO and its work. Indeed, we are seeing a golden age of activity with the present Information Commissioner. A wide range of documents is being produced, the response from industry is constantly good and it believes that she and her team are doing a great job. There is a sense that the office has been able to move forward in this complicated area in an efficient way.
However, there is a worry. We need to be sure in agreeing the Bill that the regulator the Bill creates and continues will be capable of doing the job not just in terms of structure but also of funding. Our amendment looks at one issue of the funding, but there are wider issues as well. Clause 132(4) shows that the commissioner is expected to recover and recoup her costs under four separate pieces of legislation and, as I understand the wording, it is to be done on a cost recovery basis. One needs to consider the common usage of other regulators that I have been talking about, whereby those affected by the regulation put up the funding for it. The ICO has moved from having a small amount of public funding with a great deal of grant-in-aid to one that is now largely cost recovery with the costs largely resting with the industry, but on a very restricted basis. Until recently we found that massive internet companies and government departments were paying £500 each towards to the costs of the ICO. The current consultation would suggest that the biggest companies will have to dig deep into their pockets and raise that £500 to nearly £1,000. That does not compare well with the
size of these mega-corporations whose turnovers are often larger than the GDPs of many small countries. It certainly does not give me confidence that we have a financial basis on which the work of the ICO will prosper. When the Minister comes to respond, will he give us some information on whether he thinks that the structure now in place is the right one and whether it is likely to be efficient and effective in the long run?
The second point that goes with this, although it is slightly different and not raised specifically by the amendment—again, I would be interested in the Government’s response either now or later—is how the Information Commissioner’s Office will be able to attract staff to its operations if those staff are treated, as I understand it, as effectively a non-department public body in terms of the salary scales available. Other regulators, of which Ofcom is a good example, are funded by the industry which they work to. They are thus able to set fees at levels which mean that their staff are not constantly being poached, but we find that the ICO is regularly losing members of staff to competitors because they are well trained, efficient and effective and, of course, underpaid. They can be attracted away by additional funding. It would be wrong for the Government to set up a structure in which they are willing the ends of policy but not providing the means to operate it. I look forward to the Minister’s response and I beg to move.