If not delivered return to PO Box 7820 Canberra BC ACT 2610
15 April 2016
Mr James Smith
FOI/LEX: 18363
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Mr Smith
Your Freedom of Information Request – Acknowledgement and important information
1. I refer to your request dated 31 March 2016 to the Department of Human Services (the
department) for access to documents under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the
FOI Act) for:
'I request any relevant document(s) which summarise misconduct by DHS staff. In
particular, matters concerning unauthorised access to DHS client records and misuse
of Commonwealth resources.
I would like to see the broad spectrum of offences committed, and what the resulting
consequences were for staff generally, in addition to the types of offences, and the
number of occurrences of each offence.
If such a document exists which covers any, or all, of these matters for a recent, full
financial-year period (eg, 2014-15), that will be sufficient for my purposes'.
Publically available documents
2. Please note that the material you have requested is publicly available through Hansard
and the Parliament of Australia, Senate Estimates (Community Affairs Legislation
Committee)
website. For your assistance, I have provided direct links to relevant material
concerning your request:
•
HS188 – Unauthorised access (FY 2014-15);
•
HS107 – Staff misconduct (2014);
•
HS134 – Disciplinary action (FY 2014-15);
3. On the basis that this material satisfies your request, please confirm that you are happy
to withdraw your request by contacti
ng xxx.xxxxx.xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx. Alternatively if you wish to proceed with your request, we wish to highlight the following.
PAGE 1 OF 3
Charges may be payable
4. Preliminary searches and investigations have indicated that no documents exist in the
format you have requested. Producing a document in this format would require a manual
search and interrogation of the department’s case history data. The process of manually
searching and collating the data to produce a discrete document under section 17 of the
FOI Act may require many hours of work and therefore constitute an unreasonable
diversion of departmental resources.
Proceeding with your request
5. Should you wish to proceed with this request, the department will advise you if a charge
is payable to process your request and the amount of any such charge as soon as
practicable.
6. As your request was received by the department on 31 March 2016 and the 30 day
statutory period for processing your request commenced from the day after that date.
You should therefore expect a decision from us by 2 May 2016. The period of 30 days
may be extended if we need to consult third parties or for other reasons. We will advise
you if this happens.
Your Address
7. The FOI Act requires that you provide us with an address which we can send notices to.
You have advised your electronic address is foi+request-1787-
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx. We will send all notices and correspondence to this
address. Please advise us if you wish correspondence to be sent to another address or
if your address changes as soon as possible. If you do not advise us of changes to your
address, correspondence and notices will continue to be sent to the address specified
above.
Disclosure Log
8. Please note that information released under FOI Act may be published in a disclosure
log on the department's website. Section 11C of the FOI Act requires this publication,
however it is subject to certain exceptions, including where publication of personal,
business, professional or commercial information would be unreasonable.
Exclusion of junior department employee details
9. The department is working towards ensuring that all employees have a choice about
whether they provide their full name, personal logon identifiers and direct contact details
in response to public enquiries. Where such details are included in the scope of a
request, this may add to processing time and applicable charges as it may be necessary
to consider whether the details are exempt under the FOI Act. On this basis, unless you
tell us otherwise, we will assume that these details are out of scope of your request and
they will be redacted under section 22 of the FOI Act.
PAGE 2 OF 3
Department of Human Services
10. We look forward to hearing from you. Should you have any enquiries concerning this
matter, in the meantime please send an email to:
xxx.xxxxx.xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely,
FOI Delegate
Freedom of Information Team
FOI and Litigation Branch | Legal Services Division
Department of Human Services
PAGE 3 OF 3
Department of Human Services
