The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has stepped in to assist the Department of Home Affairs meet its statutory obligations under the Freedom of Information legislation following complaints from the public.
Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner, Angelene Falk said she undertook an investigation when the complaints raised concerns about delays in processing requests for non-personal information.
In her report, the Commissioner found Home Affairs didn’t have adequate governance and systems of accountability in place to comply with its statutory time frames for processing FOI requests for non-personal information.
“Over the past four financial years, more than 50 per cent of the FOI requests to Home Affairs for non-personal information were processed outside of the statutory processing period,” Commissioner Falk said.
She found the delays exceeded the required processing time by five and 256 days.
“Factors contributing to delays include inadequate processes for addressing the escalation and finalisation of decisions, and inadequate training of non-FOI staff engaged in specific FOI requests,” she said.
“The investigation also found that a greater degree of senior-level support for embedding policies, procedures and systems for compliance would assist Home Affairs in meeting statutory processing periods under the FOI Act.”
Ms Falk said FOI was a whole-of-Agency responsibility that required the support of senior staff to ensure policies and procedures were adequate and operationalised.
She said many of the findings and recommendations in her investigation had been the subject of previous reports, and this indicated a ‘serious need’ for issues of delay to be rectified and sustained.
The Commissioner made four recommendations, all of which were accepted by the Department, including to improve its policies, systems of governance and accountability as well as procedures and training to ensure the Department was able to meet the statutory processing periods specified under the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
Ms Falk also recommended that implementation of the recommendations be audited and a report provided to the OAIC.
The Commissioner’s 62-page Report can be accessed at this PS News link.
