The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the independent regulator of information rights – empowering people through information. In a data-driven world, we protect and safeguard the public by providing advice and enforcing the law, taking action where warranted. This includes providing advice, guidance, and support to organisations to enable compliance with legal obligations, responsible innovation and economic growth.
Strategic Enduring Objectives
Our purpose is to empower you through information. We have set ourselves four enduring objectives which explain what we will do to make sure our work is focused on delivering our purpose.
We will set our annual priorities against these objectives and report our progress to Parliament and our wider stakeholders.
Our enduring objectives guide what we will do, as well as what we will not do. They also show how we will allocate our resources to support the delivery of each objective.
Read more about our Strategic enduring objectives here.
High-Performance Strategy
We believe that a high-performance culture at the ICO is essential for our people and our customers. This strategy explains why and describes the high-performance culture we will then work together to achieve. It makes sure that we have a common understanding when we think and talk about our personal, team and organisational performance.
Our high-performance strategy guides the development of our culture, capability and capacity for the next five years, through to 2028. It reaches beyond our ICO25 strategy, supporting the implementation of our target operating model. We will define the detailed actions needed to deliver our high-performance culture through our yearly directorate, team and personal objectives and tools. The objectives in this strategy represent the cross-cutting and high-level activities we believe will take us towards our high-performance culture. This strategy therefore provides clarity and direction for all ICO employees and stakeholders about which work we are prioritising and why.
Read more about our high-performance strategy here.
Values and Behaviours
Working as one ICO, our values and behaviours describe and drive how we will achieve our objectives. They guide our thinking and actions and the way we work with one another, our customers and our stakeholders. They underpin our purpose and are vital to the way we will deliver our objectives.
Read more about our values and behaviours here.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Information rights are ultimately about people – relationships, trust, equality, democracy and dignity.
At the ICO, we value what makes us unique, to better understand and serve our customers, society and the economy. This means the ICO as a workforce, employer and regulator must be equal, diverse and inclusive. We’re making sure equality, diversity and inclusion is a thread that runs through every aspect of the ICO.
Read more about our equality, diversity and inclusion objectiveshere.