If not delivered return to PO Box 7820 Canberra BC ACT 2610
2 March 2018
Our reference: LEX 35004
Mr Justin Warren
Only by email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Mr Warren
Your Freedom of Information request – Acknowledgement and Consultation
I refer to your request, dated 16 February 2018 and received by the Department of Human
Services (
department) on the same date, for access under the
Freedom of Information Act
1982 (
FOI Act) to the following:
A copy of all documents on the operational.humanservices.gov.au website currently
marked ‘potentially FOI exempt’ with boilerplate text of the following form:
The guideline you have requested is potentially FOI exempt.
You have a right to apply for the document through FOI legislation.
You can request a copy from the department's Information Publication
Scheme by:
sending an email to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
or writing to us at:
Freedom of Information
FOI and Information Release Branch
PO Box 7820
Canberra Mail Centre ACT 2610
Your request covers a wide range of documents. We are asking you to revise your request to
give us more specific details about the information you are after because of the amount of
work involved for the department.
If you decide not to revise your request, I will have to refuse it as a 'practical refusal reason'
exists.
For a more detailed explanation of what this means, see
Attachment A.
How to send us a 'revised request'
PAGE 1 OF 6
Within 14 days from the day after you receive this notice (
consultation period), you must do
one of the following, in writing:
withdraw the request;
make a revised request; or
tell us that you do not want to revise your request.
If you do not contact us during the consultation period, we will assume you do not want to
continue with your request. See
Attachment A for relevant sections of the FOI Act.
If you decide to make a revised request you should be more specific about what documents
you are seeking. This could help the department find the documents.
Contact officer
I am the contact officer for your request. During the consultation period you are welcome to
ask for my help in revising your request. You can contact me:
in writing to the address at the top of this letter; or
via email t
o xxx.xxxxx.xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
Note: When you contact us, please quote the reference number
FOI LEX 35004.
Your response
Your response will be expected by
16 March 2018. If no response is received, your matter
will be taken as withdrawn.
In the event that you do decide to make a revised request, please be aware of the following
information.
Your Address
The FOI Act requires that you provide us with an address which we can send notices to. You
have advised your electronic address i
s xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
We will send all notices and correspondence to this address. Please advise us as soon as
possible if you wish correspondence to be sent to another address or if your address
changes. If you do not advise us of changes to your address, correspondence and notices
will continue to be sent to the address specified above.
Charges
The department will advise you if a charge is payable to process your revised request and
the amount of any such charge as soon as practicable. No charge is payable for providing a
person with their own personal information.
Administrative Release of Documents
The department has administrative access arrangements (
arrangements) for the release of
certain documents without the need for a formal FOI request. In the event that you do make
a revised request, and unless you advise us otherwise, in processing your request we may
provide you with documents under these arrangements where appropriate. The
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Department of Human Services
arrangements do not extend to information or materials of third parties. Where documents
are released to you under the arrangements we will advise you in our decision letter.
Disclosure Log
Should you submit a revised request, any information released under the 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 staff details
The department is working towards ensuring that all staff have a choice about whether they
provide their full name, personal logon identifiers and direct contact details in response to
public enquiries. If such details are included in the scope of your revised 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 revised request and they will be redacted
under section 22 of the FOI Act.
Further assistance
If you have any questions please email
xxx.xxxxx.xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely
Alice
Authorised FOI Decision Maker
Freedom of Information Team
FOI and Litigation Branch | Legal Services Division
Department of Human Services
PAGE 3 OF 6
Department of Human Services
If not delivered return to PO Box 7820 Canberra BC ACT 2610
Attachment A
What you requested
On 16 February 2018, you made the following FOI request:
A copy of all documents on the operational.humanservices.gov.au website currently
marked ‘potentially FOI exempt’ with boilerplate text of the following form:
The guideline you have requested is potentially FOI exempt.
You have a right to apply for the document through FOI legislation.
You can request a copy from the department's Information Publication
Scheme by:
sending an email to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
or writing to us at:
Freedom of Information
FOI and Information Release Branch
PO Box 7820
Canberra Mail Centre ACT 2610
What I took into account
I consulted with the department’s Business Processing Branch (
Branch) in relation to the
documents within the scope of your request. The Branch is responsible for authoring, editing
and publishing operational information for staff and customers in collaboration with
responsible business areas. This consultation, and my preliminary assessment of a sample
of the documents that you are seeking, indicated that the department has over 3,000
documents within the scope of your request.
Based on my experience with this volume of material, I estimate that it would take over 700
hours to process your FOI request. This includes examining the documents for decision
making purposes, but does not include additional time for any redactions that may be
required, or any time to draft the notification of decision.
To estimate the number of pages in this calculation, I prepared a sample of 20 documents
and averaged the number of pages across these documents, which was over 7 pages. This
provided a conservative estimate of 21,000 pages within the scope of your request. While
preparing each of the 20 documents in the sample, I calculated that it took me 30 seconds
per document to search for and retrieve the document in a format that could be examined for
decision making purposes.
Below is a summary of the conservative estimate of the number of hours it would take to
process your request.
Search for and retrieve documents based on an average of 30
25 hours
seconds per document
Examine pages for decision making based on an average of two
700 hours
minutes per page
Total
725 hours
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I note that the Australian Information Commissioner was satisfied that a request requiring
343 hours of an Australian Tax Officer’s time was a substantial and unreasonable diversion
of resources in
Cash World Gold Buyers Pty Ltd and Australian Taxation Office (Freedom of
information) [2017] AICmr 20 (10 March 2017). This assessment was based on an average
of three minutes per page to process the documents, including, reading and considering the
documents, making redactions and undertaking consultation with the relevant business area.
The estimate I have provided above is based on an average of two minutes per page to
process the documents.
Additionally, the estimate I have provided does not consider the time needed to liaise with
business areas on identified sensitivities within the documents. The department is
responsible for the development of service delivery policy and provides access to social
welfare, health and other payments and services including Medicare, Centrelink and Child
Support, interacting with a significant number of Australians. There are over 130 branches
alone in the department and your request, for over 3,000 documents containing operational
information, would likely cover a substantial portion of these business areas. This means that
a considerable number of departmental officers would need to be involved in assisting the
decision maker to identify and understand sensitivities contained in the documents. This
would add significant time to preparing a decision on your FOI request and contributes to it
being manifestly voluminous in its current form.
Assistance to revise your request You may wish to consider narrowing the scope of your request to a specific process or policy
that you seek operational information on. Reviewing the department’s Operational Blueprint,
accessibl
e here, may assist you to narrow the scope of your request to the specific
documents that you would like access to.
Please note that the department has not provided exhaustive guidance in relation to the
scope of your request. This is because your request is extensive and captures a large
number of documents. Even if you provide the department with specific information that
narrows the request, a revision may still give rise to a practical refusal reason because of the
quantity of documents within scope of your current request. You will need to take this into
consideration when revising your request.
Because of the amount of work involved for the department, I intend to refuse your FOI
request as a 'practical refusal reason' exists under sections 24, 24AA(1)(a)(i) and 24AA(2) of
the FOI Act. The practical refusal reason is that processing your request would substantially
and unreasonably divert the resources of the agency from its other operations
(section 24AA(1)(a)(i)).
Relevant sections of the Freedom of Information Act 1982
Section 24AA(1)(a)(i) of the FOI Act provides that, for the purposes of section 24, a practical
refusal reason exists in relation to a FOI request if the work involved in processing the
request would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the department from its
other operations.
Section 24AA(2) of the FOI Act sets out certain factors which the department must consider
when determining whether providing access in relation to a request would substantially and
unreasonably divert the department's resources. The department must specifically have
regard to the resources that would have to be used for:
identifying, locating or collating the documents within the department's filing system;
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Department of Human Services
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.
Section 24AB(6) says that the applicant must, before the end of the consultation period, do
one of the following, by written notice to the agency or Minister:
withdraw the request;
make a revised request; or
indicate that the applicant does not wish to revise the request.
Section 24AB(7) of the FOI Act provides that the request is taken to have been withdrawn at
the end of the consultation period if:
the applicant does not consult the contact person during the consultation period in
accordance with the notice; or
the applicant does not do one of the things mentioned in subsection (6) before the
end of the consultation period.
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Department of Human Services
