FOI 63489
Request consultation notice due to existence of a practical refusal
reason under section 24AB of the Freedom of Information Act 1982
S 24AB consultation notice Frankie (Position Number 62373489),
Senior Information Access Officer, Information Access Unit,
Ministerial, International & Stakeholder Relations Branch, Department of Veterans’ Affairs
Applicant:
Mr Alan Ashmore
Decision date:
12 February 2024
FOI reference number:
LEX 63489
Sent by email:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Mr Ashmore,
Freedom of Information Request: LEX 63489
Purpose of this notice
1. The purpose of this notice is to advise you, as required under section 24AB of the
Freedom
of Information Act 1982 (
FOI Act) that I intend to refuse your request on the basis that a
practical refusal reason exist, as defined by section 24AA of the FOI Act.
2. Based on the terms of your request, and from initial searches undertaken to respond to your
request, I am of the view that a practical refusal reason exists because:
a. Processing your request, as best the Department can understand the terms, is likely to
result in a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the Department’s resources from
its other operations (section 24AA(1)(b) of the FOI Act).
Authority to make decision
3. I, Frankie (Position Number 62373489), Senior Information Access Officer, Information
Access Unit, Ministerial, International & Stakeholder Relations Branch, am an officer
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authorised by the Secretary of the Department to make decisions about access to
documents in the possession of the Department in accordance with section 23(1) of the
FOI Act.
Scope of your request
4. On 13 December 2023, you made a request for access to documents in the possession of the
Department. Your request sought access to:
‘...BACKGROUND:
In April 2023 the OAIC found DVA had breached the privacy of a veteran in relation to
the MATES program.
INFORMATION I AM SEEKINNG:
In regard to the MATES program, I am seeking all written communication both to and
from DVA to the University of South Australia, University of Adelaide and Phoenix
Australia for the period 1 April 2023 to 13 December 2023.. ’
5. On 14 December 2023, the Department acknowledged your request via email.
6. The scope wording context of your request is very similar to the previous request LEX 61891,
in which you sought documents for the date period from 1 April 2023 to 17 October 2023.
Meanwhile, you seek similar documents under this request for the date period from 1 April
2023 to 13 December 2023.
7. On 28 November 2023, the Department formal y consulted with you under section 24AB of
the FOI Act, in regards to your previous request LEX 61891. You were advised, as is required
under section 24AB of the FOI Act that the Department intend to refuse your request on the
basis that a practical refusal reason exists, as defined by section 24AA of the FOI Act. As you
did not provide a response to that consultation notice, you were notified on 13 December
2023 that your previous request LEX 61891 was taken to be withdrawn under s 24AB(7) of
the FOI Act.
Power to refuse a request
8. Section 24 of the FOI Act provides that if the Department is satisfied that a practical refusal
reason exists in relation to a request, the Department must undertake a consultation
process with you, and if, after that consultation process, the Department remains satisfied
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that the practical refusal reason stil exists, the Department may refuse to give you access to
the documents subject to the request.
9. However, before I make a decision to refuse your request you have an opportunity to revise
your request to remove the practical refusal reason. This is called a ‘request consultation
process’. You have 14 days to respond to this notice in one of the ways set out below at page
6. As mentioned below, you can request more time to consider and respond to this notice.
Please let me know if you would like additional time to respond.
When does a practical refusal reason exist (section 24AA of the FOI Act)
10. The practical refusal reason applicable to your request is that:
• processing your request, as best the Department can understand the terms, is
likely to result in a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the Department’s
resources from its other operations (section 24AA(1)(b) of the FOI Act).
Request is substantial
11. Under section 24AA(2) of the FOI Act, the Department must have regard to the resources
that would have to be used for:
• identifying, locating or col ating the documents within the filing system of the
agency;
• deciding whether to grant, refuse or defer access to a document to which the
request relates, or to grant access to an edited copy of such a document (including
resources that would have to be used for examining the document or consulting
with any person or body in relation to the request);
• making a copy or an edited copy, of the document; and
• notifying any interim or final decision on the request.
12. Further, the Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under s 93A of
the FOI Act (
FOI Guidelines) identify matters that may be relevant when deciding whether
processing the request will unreasonably divert an agency’s resources from its other
functions. These include:
• the staffing resources available to the agency for FOI processing;
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• the impact that processing a request may have on other work in the agency,
including FOI processing;
• whether an applicant has cooperated in framing a request to reduce the processing
workload;
• whether there is a significant public interest in the documents requested; and
• other steps taken by an agency or minister to publish information of the kind
requested by an applicant.
13. You have requested documents that relate to multiple third parties and their personal
information which may require at least three third party consultations to process this
request.
14. The Pharmacy Program and Operations Section with the Program Delivery Division is
identified that is responsible for the document retrieval process of your request.
15. Based on the feedback received from the business area, a significant amount of time would
be required for them to pull and col ate the documents in scope, and review these
documents to identify sensitivities.
Documents for date period: 1 April 2023 to 17 October 2023
16. The business section provided some background information in regards to the basis of
estimating the document page numbers relevant to this time period:
• 8 documents found within the share drive;
• 168 emails found within the personal mailbox among five staff members who work in
the DVA Pharmacy Program and Operations Section; and
• 219 emails found within two positional mailboxes.
17. Approximately 20 documents (5%) of the overal search results (395 documents in total)
were randomly selected and taken as a sample in this search estimate. The business section
processed the contents of the documents within this sample and estimate the fol owing
figures:
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i. Total pages from this sample are about 244 pages;
ii. Total time to process these 20 sample files is estimated to be 2 hours;
iii. Average time to process each page is about thirty seconds;
18. Therefore, it is estimate that 40.6 hours is required for the business section to col ate and
analyse the entire pool of documents (4880 pages in total) in order to provide thorough
sensitivity comments within their search minute response.
Documents for date period: 18 October 2023 to 13 December 2023
19. The business section advised that there are additional 128 emails found within this date
period. The business section processed the contents of the documents within this sample
and estimate the following figures:
20. Approximately 13 documents (10%) of the overall search results (128 documents in total)
were randomly selected and taken as a sample in this search estimate. The business section
processed the contents of the documents within this sample and estimate the following
figures:
i. Total pages from this sample are about 161 pages;
ii. Total time to process these 13 sample files is estimated to be 1 hour;
iii. Average time to process each page is about twenty-two seconds;
21. Therefore, it is estimated that 9.9 hours is required for the business section to col ate and
analyse the entire pool of documents (1610 pages in total) in order to provide thorough
sensitivity comments within their search minute response.
Total time required to process this request
22. In addition, I estimate that 218 hours of processing time would be required to deal with this
request. The reasons for this are as follows:
• I estimate that there are approximately 6490 pages of material relevant to your
request. These 6490 pages are contained over 523 documents identified as being
relevant to your request.
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• As there are approximately 1680 documents in scope, assuming this material can be
converted, collated, analysed and a decision made at an average of two minutes
per page, this equates to approximately 216 hours of processing time.
• From my initial review, it does appear that they contain irrelevant or exempt
material. A brief review of the documents indicates that some material will require
some redactions to withhold material considered to be exempt from release under
the FOI Act for example documents that are commercial in confidence (s 47) and
documents affecting personal privacy (s 47F). There may also potentially be other
redactions to be made such as legal professional privilege (s 42), documents subject
to deliberative processes (s 47C) and documents affecting certain operations of
agencies (s 47E) of the FOI Act.
• Further to the previous point, a statement of reasons wil need to be provided to
you. I anticipate that it would take approximately 2 hours to draft the statement of
reason for this decision.
23. As per above, the total time taken by the business section will be estimated as an additional
50.5 hours to collate, analyse and provide a detailed search response with sensitivities
comments.
24. Taking these factors into account, I have concluded the request is substantial.
Request is unreasonable
25. I have considered whether the substantial resource burden would be unreasonable having
regard to the following:
• 218 hours
of processing time is, at face value, an unreasonable burden for a single
FOI request, taking into account the need to process multiple requests at any given
time, and the impact such a burden would have on responding to other FOI
applicants and for the relevant business area to undertake their designated duties.
• Due to the broad nature of your request the relevant business areas would be
required to spend a significant amount of time and resources in document retrieval
and scoping activities.
26. Taking the above factors into account, I am of the view that the request as it currently stands
is unreasonable, as well as substantial.
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Ways you can revise the scope of your request
27. You now have an opportunity to revise your request so that the grounds for a practical
refusal are removed.
28. Revising your request can mean narrowing the scope of the request to make it more
manageable or explaining in more detail the documents you wish to access. For example, by
providing more specific information about exactly what documents you are interested in, we
wil be able to pinpoint the documents more quickly and avoid using excessive resources to
process documents you are not interested in.
29. For example, you may want to consider:
• providing further clarification about the information/specific documents you are seeking
access to;
• a narrower scope of documents (e.g a much shorter time period);
30. Please note that even if you do modify your request, it is possible that a practical refusal
reason under section 24AA may still exist and the Department may need further time to
process your revised request. This will depend on the revision you agree to make. As far as is
reasonably practicable, we are happy to provide you with further information to assist you in
revising your request so that it removes the practical refusal grounds.
Next steps
31. Before the end of the consultation period, which is
COB 26 February 2024 (being 14 days
from receiving this notice), you must do one of the fol owing, in writing:
• withdraw the request;
• make a revised request; or
• indicate that you do not wish to revise the request.
32. During this period, you can ask me for help to revise your request. If you revise your request
in a way that adequately addresses the practical refusal grounds outlined above, we will
recommence processing it.
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33. If you indicate you do not wish to revise your request, the Department wil proceed to make
a decision on whether to refuse the request on the grounds that processing your request wil
result in a diversion of the Department’s resources under section 24(1) of the FOI Act.
34. If you do not respond in one of these ways within 14 days (by
COB 26 February 2024), the
request wil be taken to have been withdrawn pursuant to section 24AB(7) of the FOI Act.
35. If you need more time to respond, please contact the Information Access Unit via the below
contacts, within the 14 day period to discuss your need for an extension of time.
Suspension of processing time
36. Please note under section 24AB(8) of the FOI Act, the time for processing your FOI request is
suspended from the day you receive this notice until the day you do one of the things listed
above.
37. An extract of the provisions of the FOI Act that are relevant to this notice are set out at
Schedule 1.
Contact us
38. If you wish to discuss this decision, please do not hesitate to contact the Information Access
Unit using the following details:
Post:
Information Access Unit,
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
GPO Box 9998, Brisbane QLD 4001
Email:
xxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Yours sincerely,
Frankie (Position Number 62373489)
Senior Information Access Officer
Information Access Unit
Ministerial, International & Stakeholder Relations Branch
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
12 February 2024
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FOI 63489
Schedule 1
Schedule of relevant provisions in the FOI Act
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Requests for access (as related to the requirements for requests)
Persons may request access
(1) Subject to section 15A, a person who wishes to obtain access to a document of an agency
or an official document of a Minister may request access to the document.
Requirements for request
(2)
The request must:
(a)
be in writing; and
(aa) state that the request is an application for the purposes of this Act; and
(b)
provide such information concerning the document as is reasonably necessary to
enable a responsible officer of the agency, or the Minister, to identify it; and
(c)
give details of how notices under this Act may be sent to the applicant (for
example, by providing an electronic address to which notices may be sent by
electronic communication).
(2A) The request must be sent to the agency or Minister. The request may be sent in any of the
following ways:
(a)
delivery to an officer of the agency, or a member of the staff of the Minister, at the
address of any central or regional office of the agency or Minister specified in a
current telephone directory;
(b)
postage by pre-paid post to an address mentioned in paragraph (a);
(c)
sending by electronic communication to an electronic address specified by the
agency or Minister.
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Power to refuse request--diversion of resources etc.
(1)
If an agency or Minister is satisfied, when dealing with a request for a document, that a
practical refusal reason exists in relation to the request (see section 24AA), the agency or
Minister:
(a)
must undertake a request consultation process (see section 24AB); and
(b)
if, after the request consultation process, the agency or Minister is satisfied that
the practical refusal reason still exists--the agency or Minister may refuse to give
access to the document in accordance with the request.
(2)
For the purposes of this section, the agency or Minister may treat 2 or more requests as a
single request if the agency or Minister is satisfied that:
(a)
the requests relate to the same document or documents; or
(b)
the requests relate to documents, the subject matter of which is substantially the
same.
24AA When does a practical refusal reason exist?
(1)
For the purposes of section 24, a practical refusal reason exists in relation to a request for a
document if either (or both) of the fol owing applies:
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(a)
the work involved in processing the request:
(i)
in the case of an agency--would substantial y and unreasonably divert the
resources of the agency from its other operations; or
(ii) in the case of a Minister--would substantial y and unreasonably interfere
with the performance of the Minister's functions;
(b)
the request does not satisfy the requirement in paragraph 15(2)(b) (identification
of documents).
(2)
Subject to subsection (3), but without limiting the matters to which the agency or Minister
may have regard, in deciding whether a practical refusal reason exists, the agency or
Minister must have regard to the resources that would have to be used for the fol owing:
(a)
identifying, locating or collating the documents within the filing system of the
agency, or the office of the Minister;
(b)
deciding whether to grant, refuse or defer access to a document to which the
request relates, or to grant access to an edited copy of such a document, including
resources that would have to be used for:
(i)
examining the document; or
(ii)
consulting with any person or body in relation to the request;
(c)
making a copy, or an edited copy, of the document;
(d)
notifying any interim or final decision on the request.
(3)
In deciding whether a practical refusal reason exists, an agency or Minister must not have
regard to:
(a)
any reasons that the applicant gives for requesting access; or
(b)
the agency's or Minister's belief as to what the applicant's reasons are for
requesting access; or
(c)
any maximum amount, specified in the regulations, payable as a charge for
processing a request of that kind.
24AB What is a request consultation process?
Scope
(1)
This section sets out what is a request consultation process for the purposes of section 24.
Requirement to notify
(2)
The agency or Minister must give the applicant a written notice stating the following:
(a)
an intention to refuse access to a document in accordance with a request;
(b)
the practical refusal reason;
(c)
the name of an officer of the agency or member of staff of the Minister (the
contact person ) with whom the applicant may consult during a period;
(d)
details of how the applicant may contact the contact person;
(e)
that the period (the consultation period ) during which the applicant may consult
with the contact person is 14 days after the day the applicant is given the notice.
Assistance to revise request
(3)
If the applicant contacts the contact person during the consultation period in accordance
with the notice, the agency or Minister must take reasonable steps to assist the applicant
to revise the request so that the practical refusal reason no longer exists.
(4)
For the purposes of subsection (3), reasonable steps includes the fol owing:
(a)
giving the applicant a reasonable opportunity to consult with the contact person;
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(b)
providing the applicant with any information that would assist the applicant to
revise the request.
Extension of consultation period
(5)
The contact person may, with the applicant's agreement, extend the consultation period by
written notice to the applicant.
Outcome of request consultation process
(6)
The applicant must, before the end of the consultation period, do one of the fol owing, by
written notice to the agency or Minister:
(a)
withdraw the request;
(b)
make a revised request;
(c)
indicate that the applicant does not wish to revise the request.
(7)
The request is taken to have been withdrawn under subsection (6) at the end of the
consultation period if:
(a)
the applicant does not consult the contact person during the consultation period in
accordance with the notice; or
(b)
the applicant does not do one of the things mentioned in subsection (6) before the
end of the consultation period.
Consultation period to be disregarded in calculating processing period
(8)
The period starting on the day an applicant is given a notice under subsection (2) and
ending on the day the applicant does one of the things mentioned in paragraph (6)(b) or (c)
is to be disregarded in working out the 30 day period mentioned in paragraph 15(5)(b).
Note: Paragraph 15(5)(b) requires that an agency or Minister take al reasonable steps to notify an applicant of a
decision on the applicant's request within 30 days after the request is made.
No more than one request consultation process required (9)
To avoid doubt, this section only obliges the agency or Minister to undertake a request
consultation process once for any particular request.
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Document Outline
