Residential qualification for income related benefits

Summary

The requester asked for data on how often the five-year residency requirement for Income Support was overridden in the past ten years, including decision levels and reasons. The Treasury refused the request, citing that the information is held in non-machine-readable paper files and compiling it would require substantial resources.

Key Facts

• Income Support claims are currently processed on paper and decisions are recorded in hard copy files.
• The Treasury's electronic Benefits Payment System does not store data regarding whether claimants satisfy the residential condition.
• A manual search of records was deemed to require significant personnel resources.
• Even reducing the request scope to six months would involve checking over 800 applications.
• The request was refused under the practical refusal reason provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2015.

Data Disclosed

• 2024-07-23
• 2024-08-12
• 4002933
• 10 years
• 6 months
• 800 applications

Exemptions Cited

• Section 8(3)(c) of the Freedom of Information Act 2015 (substantial compilation or collation)
• Section 11(3)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2015 (practical refusal reason)

Original Request

"My FOI request concerns the following: Income support Guidelines for all benefits suggest 'you must satisfy the IOM residential condition'. The clause most pertinent to my FOI request is the five-year continuous residency. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Webpage for Income Support adds 'satisfy the IOM residential condition (though in exceptional circumstances you may get income support even if you DON'T satisfy the IOM residential condition). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My FOI request is this, and refers to Income Support only; 1 - over the past ten years how many times has the 'residency requirement' been overridden when considering applications? 2 - at what level (counter clerk, Minister, or a middle-ranking official?) was the decision taken to override the 'residency requirement'? 3 - For what reason was the 'residency qualification' overridden in each of the cases, if any cases exist?

Data Tables (1)

Full Response Text

Freedom of Information
Seyrsnys Fysseree

The Treasury Government Office,
Douglas Isle of Man, IM1 3PU

Telephone: (01624) 685605 Email: FOI.Treasury@gov.im

Government Website: www.gov.im

Our ref: 4002933 12 August 2024

Dear ###

This request is being handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2015.

We write further to your request received 23 July 2024 and amended on the 27 July 2024, which states:

"My FOI request concerns the following:

Income support

Guidelines for all benefits suggest 'you must satisfy the IOM residential condition'. The
clause most pertinent to my FOI request is the five-year continuous residency. ---------

Webpage for Income Support adds 'satisfy the IOM residential condition (though in
exceptional circumstances you may get income support even if you DON'T satisfy the
IOM residential condition). -------------------------------------------------------------------------

My FOI request is this, and refers to Income Support only;

1 - over the past ten years how many times has the 'residency requirement' been
overridden when considering applications?

2 - at what level (counter clerk, Minister, or a middle-ranking official?) was the decision
taken to override the 'residency requirement'?

3 - For what reason was the 'residency qualification' overridden in each of the cases, if
any cases exist?

Our response to your request is as follows:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance and as previously advised, complying with your request for information would require Treasury to undertake substantial compilation or collation of information that it holds which Treasury is not required to do under section 8(3)(c) of the Act. In these circumstances, a public authority may refuse a request on the grounds that a practical refusal reason applies under section 11(3)(b) of the Act.

We acknowledge that you reconsidered the scope of the information you are interested in, however even after this we were still unable to remove the practical refusal reason, as explained in the paragraphs below. All claims for Income Support are currently paper based and the decisions made on those claims are recorded within the individual hard copy files. These decisions are not uploaded to the electronic systems used to make benefit payments to customers and the hard copy files are not machine readable.
Whilst Treasury’s Benefits Payment System (BPS) does hold information relating to payments of Income Support (as well as other benefits), including the calculation of claimants’ applicable amounts, it does not hold information as to whether a claimant satisfies the Isle of Man residential condition. Therefore it is not possible to use electronic searches for this particular request and, due to the volume of applications received daily, a manual search of the individual’s paper-based records to obtain the information requested would require significant personnel resource from the Division.
We have further considered the possibility of removing the practical refusal reason by reducing the time period for the information requested, however even for a period of 6 months there are over 800 applications for Income Support and it would take substantial resources to manually check each one. In this case, fulfilling the request would still require us to undertake substantial compilation or collation of information that we hold. For these reasons Treasury has demonstrated that it is necessary to apply a practical refusal reason to this request.
Please quote the reference number 4002933 in any future communications.

Your right to request a review

If you are unhappy with this response to your freedom of information request, you may ask us to carry out an internal review of the response, by completing a complaint form and submitting it electronically or by delivery/post.

An electronic version of our complaint form can be found by going to our website at https://services.gov.im/freedom-of-information/Review . If you would like a paper version of our complaint form to be sent to you by post, please contact me and I will be happy to arrange for this. Your review request should explain why you are dissatisfied with this response, and should be made as soon as practicable. We will respond as soon as the review has been concluded.

If you are not satisfied with the result of the review, you then have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for a decision on; 1. Whether we have responded to your request for information in accordance with Part 2 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015; or 2. Whether we are justified in refusing to give you the information requested.
In response to an application for review, the Information Commissioner may, at any time, attempt to resolve a matter by negotiation, conciliation, mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution and will have regard to any outcome of this in making any subsequent decision. More detailed information on your right to a review can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.inforights.im. Should you have any queries concerning this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Further information about freedom of information requests can be found at www.gov.im/foi.

I will now close your request as of this date.