FOI
Charges decision made under the Freedom of Information Act 1982
Decision to impose a charge and preliminary assessment of charge of Information Law,
Legal Services & Assurance
Applicant:
Verity Pane
Decision date:
2 October 2018
FOI reference number:
FOI 23544
Documents:
Request for document to be created (as detailed at paragraph 3 below)
Dear Verity Pane
Freedom of Information Request: FOI 23544
1.
I have made a decision to impose charges in the amount of $690.75.
Authority to make this decision
2.
I, Position Number 62210022, Information Law, Legal Services & Assurance, am an officer authorised
by the Secretary of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (the Department) to make decisions about
charges applying to requests for access to documents in the possession of the Department, in
accordance with Section 23(1) of the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act).
Background
3.
On 16 July 2018, you made a request for access to documents in the possession of the Department.
Your request sought access to:
In light of recent media reporting and admissions by the Minister in Federal Parliament that the
Department spent more than $0.6m in external legal services fees in regards to just one
veteran - Martin Rollins - in relation to DVA’s deliberate backdating of a rewrite of a DVA policy
to exclude Mr Rollins’ receiving a benefit he was entitled to at the time of his applying for it
(http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/dva-secretly-changed-rules-to-deny-veterans-claim/9883774)
there is a public interest in understanding how the Department is expending public funds on
external legal services.
While the Department reports just one summary total of expenditure on external legal services
in its annual reports, this is clearly insufficient and far too opaque to understand what the
Department is spending on external legal costs for individual matters. While this information
does indicate the Department spends between $7m - $10m on external legal services roughly
every financial year, it gives no indication whether it may relate to only a small number of
individual veterans or many or what the Department roughly spends per legal issue - which is
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important to understand when considering if the claims that the Department is combative and
litigious are overstated or not.
Certainly the recent admission (initially refuted) that the Department has spend in excess of
half a million dollars, litigiously, to defend this backdated change of policy to deny Martin
Rollins a benefit that existed at the time he applied for it (and ironically this legal expenditure
many hundreds of thousands of dollars greater than the benefit he was otherwise entitled to
receive), raises public interest questions whether such excessive external legal expenditure is
endemic or is a one off isolated case.
To that end, under FOI, I seek under s 17 of the FOI Act for a summary document to be created
(so as to avoid unnecessary disclosure of irrelevant Departmental information) from data in the
Departments financial and information management systems, to break down these global
external legal services expenditure, so that greater transparency is given.
I seek a breakdown to be provided for the last three financial years - FY17/18, FY16/17, and
FY15/16 - and to be broken down to matters involving individual veterans and other. Where
matters involved individual veterans, this should be further broken down to stating the
cumulative external legal services expenditure per veteran involved (with each veteran referred
to by pseudonym - so first veteran is Veteran A, next is Veteran B, and so on). In order to reduce
burden, where external legal expenditure involving an individual veteran is below $10K
cumulative for each financial year, they may be reported as a group (as the interest is in
excessive external legal expenditure). An example of the layout I seek is below:
...............................FY17/18...................FY16/17....................FY15/16
......................................$...............................$...............................$
Other
Veteran A
Veteran B
etc
Veterans > $10K
4.
On 15 August 2018, the Department issued you a notice in accordance with section 24AB of the
FOI Act, on the grounds that processing your request would unreasonably divert the resources of the
Department from its operations as specified in section 24AA(1)(a)(i) of the FOI Act due to its
size and
complexity; noting 60 hours would be required to process the request
.
5.
Following this notice, you revised the scope of your request, noting you “ …
would however be willing
to refine the scope to FY15/16 in the first instance…” As this removed the practical refusal reason, it
was agreed the Department would process the request.
6.
On 27 September 2018, you were issued with a charges notice advising you were liable to pay a
charge of $690.75 in respect of the processing of your request. On the same day you responded to
the notice, but did not request a reduction or waiver of the charge.
Your liability to pay a charge
7.
As you have not provided information to suggest financial hardship or public interest may apply or
that the charges have been wrongly assessed, in accordance with Section 29(1) of the FOI Act, I have
decided that you are liable to pay a charge of $690.75 in relation to your request. A breakdown of
this charge, as well as the basis on which the assessment is made, is provided for in detail at
Schedule 1.
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8.
On payment of a deposit ($172.69, which is 25% of the total charges applying to your request)
processing of your request will commence. You will be advised of my decision within 2 days after
payment of the deposit. The deposit can be paid by forwarding a cheque for the required amount to:
Legal Services & Assurance, Department of Veterans’ Affairs
GPO Box 9998, Canberra ACT 2601
Your rights of review
9.
If you disagree with the Department’s decision to impose charges in relation to your FOI request, you
can ask for the decision to be reviewed. There are two ways you can ask for review of a decision:
internal review by the Department and external review by the Office of the Australian Information
Commissioner (OAIC). We encourage you to seek internal review as a first step as it may provide a
more rapid resolution of your concerns.
Internal Review
10.
Under Section 54 of the FOI Act, you may apply in writing to the Department for an internal review of
my decision to impose a charge and/or the preliminary assessment of charge. There is no charge for
internal review. You must apply within 30 days of being notified of the decision, unless the
Department extends the application time. You should contact the Department if you wish to seek an
extension. The Department must make a review decision within 30 days. If it does not do so, its
original decision is considered to be affirmed. The review will be carried out by a different
departmental officer, usually someone at a more senior level. Where possible, please attach reasons
why you believe review of the decision is necessary. You can lodge your application in one of the
following ways:
Post: Legal Services & Assurance, Department of Veterans’ Affairs
GPO Box 9998, Canberra ACT 2601
Facsimile: (02) 6289 6316
Email: xxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Information Commissioner review
11.
Under section 54L of the FOI Act, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner to review
my decision to impose a charge and/or the preliminary assessment of charge. An application for
review by the Information Commissioner must be made in writing within 60 days of the date of this
notice and can be lodge in one of the following ways:
Online: www.oaic.gov.au
Post: Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 2999, Canberra ACT 2601
Facsimile: (02) 9284 9666
Email: xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
In person: 4 National Circuit, Barton ACT; or at
Level 3, 175 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW.
12. More information about your review rights under the FOI Act is available in Fact Sheet 12 published
by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner: http://oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-
information/foi-resources/freedom-of-information-fact-sheets/foi-factsheet-12-your-review-rights
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Contact us
13.
If you wish to discuss this decision to impose a charge, or the preliminary charges estimate, please do
not hesitate to contact me using the following details:
Post: Legal Services & Assurance, Department of Veterans’ Affairs
GPO Box 9998, Canberra ACT 2601
Facsimile: (02) 6289 6316
Email: xxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Yours Sincerely,
Position Number 62210022
Information Law
Legal Services & Assurance
2 October 2018
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