25 January 2011
This section follows on from Section 15 and relates to follow-up action which the Commissioner can take after he/she has published a report on a formal investigation. In cases where the Commissioner has made a report which recommends that a relevant authority take a particular action, the Commissioner is given the power in this Section to issue a formal Notice to the organisation involved. This Section requires the organisation to write back to the Commissioner within three months explaining either what it has done to follow the Commissioner’s recommendation or if it has decided not to follow the recommendation, to explain the reasons why.
If the organisation has not followed the Commissioner’s recommendation and the Commissioner considers that the reason given is inadequate, the Commissioner can again issue a further Notice to the organisation setting out the inadequacy and requiring the authority to reconsider the matter and reply within one month.
The Commissioner is also given the power in this section to publish information on:
the recommendations he/she has made;
how the Commissioner may have followed them up with letters to the organisations involved;
what the organisation did or did not do in response to the Commissioner’s letters and/or recommendation(s).
This information will be kept in a register and the Commissioner can arrange for copies of the register to be made available for public inspection in any way he/she believes is appropriate.