VicForests failed to provide adequate access to its information when handling freedom of information (FOI) requests according to the Victorian Information Commissioner following a recent investigation.
After his inspection, Information Commissioner Sven Bluemmel said the report he produced contained lessons of value to all Victorian Government Agencies and Statutory Authorities.
Revisiting the matter, Mr Bluemmel said that in July 2020, a member of the public made an FOI request to VicForests seeking information she believed it held about her.
The Agency refused to process the request on the basis that it was not sufficiently clear.
Mr Bluemmel said that over the course of almost two years involving four FOI requests, review applications, complaints, and his own investigation, the applicant continued to try but failed to access the information.
The Commissioner said that while handling the complaint, he expressed a view to VicForests that the FOI request should be processed.
“VicForests did not do so,” he said.
“The series of events detailed in this report highlights a regrettably common situation, where the legal process that underlies FOI is the focus of attention at the expense of the public good that FOI is intended to achieve,” Mr Bluemmel said.
“I observed that in handling these FOI requests, VicForests focussed on legal soundness and efficiency, sometimes at the expense of achieving the FOI Act’s underlying goal of providing access to information,” he said.
“In doing so, VicForests missed opportunities to help the applicant make a successful FOI request.
“Some of these opportunities were as simple as speaking to the applicant to ask her what she was seeking.”
Mr Bluemmel found that VicForests acted inconsistently with certain sections of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to make the maximum amount of Government information available promptly and inexpensively to the public.
“In its handling of these FOI requests, VicForests was focused on process and the outcome was forgotten – which should have been to help this person obtain fair and prompt access to information,” the Commissioner said.
“The applicant in this investigation faced a complex and difficult legal process to seek access to information about herself,” he said.
“No Victorian should find themselves in that position.”
Mr Bluemmel made eight recommendations to VicForests to enhance its FOI processes and practices, including that it process the particular applicant’s outstanding FOI request, which it has now done.
He said the Agency did not accept all his findings and believed it met its obligations under the FOI Act, however VicForests did agree to implement the recommendations.
Mr Bluemmel said his investigation report highlighted the need for the FOI Act to be made simpler, to allow Victorians to access Government information about themselves quickly and easily.
The Commissioner’s 133-page Process versus Outcome: Investigation into VicForests’ handling of a series of FOI requests report can be accessed at this PS News link.
