Purpose
The ICO exists to empower you through information:
- We empower you as a member of the public to confidently contribute to a thriving society and sustainable economy.
- We empower your organisation to plan, invest, responsibly innovate and grow.
- We empower you by promoting openness and transparency by public bodies.
- We empower you to hold us to account for the difference we make when enforcing the laws we oversee.
Strategic objectives
- Safeguard and empower people, particularly the most vulnerable, by upholding our information rights and enabling us all to confidently contribute to a thriving society and sustainable economy.
- Empower responsible innovation and sustainable economic growth, by providing regulatory certainty about what the law requires, reducing the cost of compliance and clarifying what we will do if things go wrong. This enables those we regulate to plan, invest and innovate with confidence.
- Promote openness, transparency and accountability, supporting the development of a modern Freedom of Information (FOIA) and Environmental Information (EIR) practice framework in the UK, inspiring confidence in public services and democracy.
- Driven by our values, we’ll continuously develop the ICO’s culture, capability and capacity to deliver impactful regulatory outcomes, be recognised as an effective provider of public services, a knowledgeable and influential regulator and a great place to work and develop.
Values
Curious
We believe in continuous learning, empowering our teams to experiment and innovate and are eager for new or different perspectives to inform our work. We are curious enough to consider new ideas and agile enough to explore them effectively. We are curious and empathetic and actively interested to understand all perspectives. We particularly use this to make our expectations of those we regulate as simple as possible to implement. We regularly ask ourselves why, and why not, and seek creative opportunities and solutions to both recurring and new situations. We challenge each other constructively, supporting each other to find the best outcome.
Collaborative
We work together in ways which enable us to prioritise, support our agility and our collective and individual high performance. This enables us to successfully execute our plans by responding to emerging risks and opportunities at pace but without sacrificing our high standards. We move fast together so we can fix things in ways which are timely and relevant for our customers, stakeholders and colleagues. We experiment together, learn and continuously improve. If it doesn’t work, we learn from it quickly and make changes.
Impactful
We thrive on delivering at pace and with impact, by being selective to be effective. This will help us to ensure our important work makes a material difference and take pride in our high performance. We set clear objectives, make timely, informed decisions, using evidence and insight, and measure and evaluate our work. We achieve high performance by empowering people to take personal ownership and accountability. We learn from our mistakes, continuously develop and celebrate our successes.
Inclusive
We want a truly equal, diverse workforce and inclusive culture. One where we respect each other and those we serve. We want diverse teams and leadership. We want stakeholder relationships that reflect our society so our organisation can thrive and perform at our very best.
We are curious to understand all perspectives, recognising the value that they bring. Our aim is for equality, diversity and inclusion to become fully embedded in all our working and thinking.