The Information Commissioner’s Office has secured a £15% “pay rise” – which could give the regulator an additional £7.5m a year in extra funding – after striking a deal with the Department of Digital, Media, Culture & Sport and the Treasury to keep hold of a bundle of cash it collects in fines.
The ICO is already the biggest and the richest data protection authority in Europe, with a budget of more than £50m and a staff of nearly 800. However, more than three years ago the regulator warned it was facing rocketing legal bills.
Its 2019 annual report stated: “A risk to ensuring the ICO has adequate resources is the increased risk of contentious, complex and lengthy legal proceedings which has already started and is likely to continue with the size of the fines that can be assessed under GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
“We are currently exploring options to mitigate this risk. These options include ring-fencing fine income specifically to fund litigation costs, additional grant in aid, deficit budgeting, use of reserves, or seeking awards of costs through court proceedings. A key piece of work for 2019-20 will be to identify the way forward in this area.”
Under the old regime, all the income from the ICO’s civil monetary penalties was passed to the Government’s central Consolidated Fund. From this year, the regulator will be able to keep some funds to cover pre-agreed, specific and externally audited litigation costs.
A similar arrangement already exists for other UK regulators.
The ICO maintains the change means it can make sure it has the right resources to hold those who do not comply to account and funding its legal costs will support the regulator in litigating complicated and difficult cases.
The additional funds will also allow the ICO to make sure more of the charges paid by rogue firms can be used to directly fund its business advice and support services.
ICO chief regulatory officer James Dipple Johnstone said: “Being able to recover some of our litigation costs will form an important part of ensuring that the ICO has the right tools to do our job. We are on the side of the public and responsible businesses and being well resourced to take action can give everyone the confidence that, where appropriate, we will act effectively to uphold rights.”
Whether this deal will crank up action to get firms to actually cough up their fines – a long running issue – remains to be seen.
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