9 ICO staff probe 180,000 call gripes

The scale of the challenge to banish the scourge of nuisance calls and texts has finally been exposed after the Information Commissioner’s Office revealed its enforcement team has just nine people working on the issue.
With more than 180,000 complaints about nuisance calls last year – a rise of 11% – it means every person on the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations enforcement team had to try to plough through nearly 20,000 complaints, 400 a week each.
However, the ICO cannot provide details on how many of these complaints have been dealt with or the timescale. It insisted when people report their concerns regarding nuisance calls and marketing, the information is aggregated. It uses that intelligence to target rogue companies.
“We don’t handle the concerns on an individual basis so it’s meaningless to provide stats,” it said.
A press officer added: “With regards to the PECR complaints, the number in the annual report is the amount of complaints received, any investigations into these complaints may not necessarily be completed in the same year or could cross over into the year before. The report contains action we’ve taken in 2014-15 around nuisance calls but again this could be from complaints made the year before.”
Speaking on BBC Breakfast last month, Commissioner Christopher Graham refused to give details of how many people were in the PECR team, simply saying: “I have a small team, but they are very effective.” However, when pressed further he added: “Look, don’t shoot the messenger.”
However, the ICO is currently on a recruitment drive and hopes to have 14 people in place in the near future, which although still miniscule given official estimates of a billion nuisance calls a year, is a marked improvement on 2013/14.
A Freedom of Information Request submitted in September 2013 showed the PECR enforcement team contained just six people.
An ICO press officer added: “We now have a core team of nine staff for PECR investigations. We are currently recruiting five extra staff. So, the total will shortly be 14. These core staff are supplemented by four intelligence hub staff, who provide the research and analysis for PECR investigations.
“We work flexibly and other enforcement staff, who may have core roles on either the civil or criminal teams, will provide extra resource according to need, for example when deploying for search warrants. There are 50 staff on the enforcement team altogether.”

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