PO Box 7820 Canberra BC ACT 2610
22 December 2021
Our reference: LEX 64959
G Griffiths
Right to Know
Only by email:
foi+request-7989-1b70b7c6@right oknow.org.au
Dear Sir / Madam
Decision on your Freedom of Information Request
I refer to your request to Services Australia (the agency) dated 19 October 2021 for access
under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) to:
…copies of any documents relating to the selection of the hold music for the Services
Australia phone lines, including Centrelink, Medicare, and the Australian
Immunisation Register.
My decision
The agency holds 9 documents relating to your request. Most of these documents relate to
hold music arrangements which are part of the agency’s telecommunications provider
contract.
I have decided to
refuse access to all 9 documents.
I have decided the documents you have requested are exempt under the FOI Act, as they
contain:
• information having a commercial value that could reasonably be expected to be
destroyed or diminished if the information were disclosed (section 47)
• deliberative matter, the disclosure of which would be contrary to the public interest
(section 47C)
• information which could reasonably be expected to have a substantial adverse effect
on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the agency and release is
contrary to the public interest (section 47E(d))
• personal information about another person, the disclosure of which would be
unreasonable and contrary to the public interest (section 47F(1)), and
• information concerning the business, commercial or financial affairs of an
organisation and disclosure of this information could reasonably be expected to
unreasonably affect the organisation in respect of its lawful business, commercial or
financial affairs, and release is contrary to the public interest (section 47G).
Please see the schedule at Attachment A to this letter for a detailed list of the documents and
the reasons for my decision, including the relevant sections of the FOI Act.
PAGE 1 OF 12
You can ask for a review of our decision
If you disagree with any part of the decision you can ask for a review. There are two ways
you can do this. You can ask for an internal review from within the agency, or an external
review by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. See Attachment B for more
information about how to request a review.
Further assistance
If you have any questions please ema
il xxx.xxxxx.xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely
Philippa
Authorised FOI Decision Maker
Freedom of Information Team
Information Access Branch | Legal Services Division
Services Australia
PAGE 2 OF 12
Attachment A
SCHEDULE OF DOCUMENTS
GRIFFITHS, G (Right to Know) - LEX 64959
Doc
Description
Decision
Exemption
Comments
No.
Deliberative material (section 47C).
s 47C
1.
CSSC Minute
Exempt in full
Information that would have a substantial adverse effect
s 47E(d)
on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the
agency (section 47E(d)).
Information that would have a substantial adverse effect
2.
Project Timeline
Exempt in full
s 47E(d)
on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the
agency (section 47E(d)).
Information that would have a substantial adverse effect
3.
Response
Exempt in full
s 47E(d)
on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the
agency (section 47E(d)).
Information that would have a substantial adverse effect
4.
Survey Responses
Exempt in full
s 47E(d)
on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the
agency (section 47E(d)).
Information that would have a substantial adverse effect
5.
Hold Music Survey correspondence
Exempt in full
s 47E(d)
on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the
agency (section 47E(d)).
PAGE 3 OF 12
Doc
Description
Decision
Exemption
Comments
No.
6.
Deputy Secretary Service Delivery Operations Brief
Exempt in full
s 47C
Deliberative material (section 47C).
s 47C
Deliberative material (section 47C).
7.
Chief Executive Officer Brief – Hold Music
Exempt in full
s 47F(1)
Personal information (section 47F(1)).
Information that would have a substantial adverse effect
s 47E(d)
on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the
8.
Managed Telephony Services contract extract
Exempt in full
agency (section 47E(d)).
s 47G
Information concerning the business, commercial or
financial affairs of an organisation (section 47G).
s 47
Commercially valuable information (section 47).
s 47C
Deliberative material (section 47C).
s 47E(d)
Information that would have a substantial adverse effect
9.
Music on Hold – Production Deployment
Exempt in full
on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the
agency (section 47E(d)).
Information concerning the business, commercial or
s 47G
financial affairs of an organisation (section 47G).
PAGE 4 OF 12
REASONS FOR DECISION
What you requested
Please provide copies of any documents relating to the selection of the hold
music for the Services Australia phone lines, including Centrelink, Medicare,
and the Australian Immunisation Register.
Charges
On 5 November 2021, the agency notified you in accordance with section 29 of the
FOI Act you were liable to pay a change for the processing of your request. Our
preliminary assessment of the charge was $110.00.
In accordance with Regulation 10 of the
Freedom of Information (Charges)
Regulations 2019 (Regulations), I have considered the actual time taken to process
your request. Pursuant to the Regulations, the agency must consider whether the
amount paid equals the actual amount you would be liable to pay in respect of the
charge. I consider the charge of $110.00 to be a fair and accurate reflection of the
time taken to process your request.
On this basis, I have fixed the charge at $110.00 under Regulation 9 of the
Regulations.
What I took into account
In reaching my decision I took into account:
• your request dated 19 October 2021
• the documents falling within the scope of your request
• consultation with third parties about documents containing information
concerning their organisation’s business and commercial affairs
• whether the release of material is in the public interest
• consultations with agency officers about:
o the nature of the documents
o the agency's operating environment and functions
• guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under section
93A of the FOI Act (the Guidelines), and
• the FOI Act.
PAGE 5 OF 12
Reasons for my decisions
I am authorised to make decisions under section 23(1) of the FOI Act.
I have decided the documents you have requested are exempt under the FOI Act.
My findings of fact and reasons for deciding this are discussed below.
Commercially valuable information
I have applied the exemption in section 47(1)(b) of the FOI Act to Document 9.
This section of the FOI Act allows the agency to exempt material from release if
disclosure would reveal trade secrets or destroy or diminish commercially valuable
information.
Commercial value may relate, for example, to the profitability or viability of a
continuing business operation or commercial activity in which an agency or person is
involved.
Document 9 is a Project Request for the provision of managed telecommunication
services. This document is confidential and is not in the public domain. I am satisfied
this information has commercial value as it includes commercial quotations and fees
for scoping of work. Further, I am satisfied parts of this document contain technically
sensitive information, strategies and solutions that remain the intellectual property of
a telecommunications vendor, and this information is commercially valuable.
Should this document be released, competitors of the telecommunications vendor
could be provided information about the technical and commercial specifics of the
services provided to the agency by this business. Dissemination of this information
would enable competitors to emulate the technical services and provide them at a
lower price point, damaging the commercial viability of the services provided.
I consulted with the telecommunications vendor who provided this document to the
agency. In its submissions, the vendor confirmed the confidentiality of the
information, the commercial value of the information and the advantageous nature of
this information should it be disclosed to competitors. Specifically, the vendor
submit ed that competitors would be able to gain a commercial advantage over the
vendor when competing on similar projects in the future.
Having considered the vendor’s submission and the material in question, I am
satisfied the commercial value of Document 9 would be, or could reasonably be
expected to be, destroyed or diminished if the information was disclosed.
For the reasons set out above, I am satisfied Document 9 is exempt in full under
section 47(1)(b) of the FOI Act.
Deliberative processes
Section 47C of the FOI Act provides a document is conditionally exempt if it would
disclose deliberative matter. Deliberative matter is an opinion, advice or
PAGE 6 OF 12
recommendation, or a consultation or deliberation that has taken place in the course
of, or for the purposes of, the deliberative processes of an agency. Material which is
operational or purely factual information is not deliberative. The deliberative
exemption also does not apply to reports of scientific or technical experts, reports of
a body or organisation prescribed by the regulations, or a formal statement of
reasons.
I have applied this exemption to Documents 1, 6, 7 and 9. I am satisfied Documents
1, 6 and 7 are briefing documents containing information to be considered by senior
agency staff about on hold music and commercial agreements to obtain this service.
This includes opinions, advice and recommendations.
Further, I am satisfied Document 9 contains recommendations to senior staff about
engaging the telecommunications vendor and recommendations around procuring
the vendor’s services. I am satisfied the documents are not operational information or
purely factual information and are otherwise not of a kind specifically excluded by the
FOI Act.
Accordingly, I am of the view that the information is also conditionally exempt under
section 47C of the FOI Act.
Operations of the agency
I have applied the exemption in section 47E(d) of the FOI Act to Documents 1 – 5,
and 8 – 9.
This section of the FOI Act allows the agency to redact material from a document if
its disclosure would have a serious or significant effect on the agency’s ability to
conduct its operations efficiently and properly.
The relevant documents contain information about the selection of hold music and in
queue announcements for telephony queues, including selection methodology,
project timelines, outcomes, vendor sourcing arrangements and cost. I am satisfied
this information is relevant to the implementation, delivery and management of a
process administered by the agency, and is therefore relevant to the conduct of the
agency’s operations.
I consider providing the exempt material to you, which is not publicly available, would
negatively affect the conduct of the operations of the agency because it would reveal
information about vendor sourcing and commercial arrangements of the agency, and
compromise the agency’s ability to effectively obtain tenders from suitably qualified
telecommunication service vendors.
Should this information be released, there is a significant risk third parties wil not
consider tendering for projects if a precedent of the agency releasing technical and
commercially valuable information under FOI is established. Alternatively, third
parties may not provide all relevant information (out of fear of commercially valuable
information being disclosed), impacting delegates’ decisions to spend money on
appropriate government services. This, in turn, would seriously affect the agency’s
ability to obtain commercial services.
PAGE 7 OF 12
Personal information
I have applied the exemption in section 47F(1) of the FOI Act to parts of Document
7.
Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an
individual who is reasonably identifiable. It can include a person’s name, address,
telephone number, date of birth, medical records, bank account details, taxation
information and signature. I am satisfied Document 7 contains person information,
being the personal information of a member of the public, including their full name
and contact number.
I am satisfied the disclosure of this personal information would be unreasonable as
you do not have consent from this individual for the release of their personal
information. Further, I am satisfied the information is private, not well known to you,
and not publicly available. In my view disclosure of this information is unreasonable
and no public purpose would be achieved through release.
Business information
I have applied the exemption in section 47G for the FOI Act to Documents 8 and 9.
This section of the FOI Act allows the agency to withhold material if disclosure of
information concerning the business, commercial or financial affairs of an
organisation would adversely affect the organisation in respect of its lawful business,
commercial or financial affairs.
I am satisfied Documents 8 and 9 contain the business and commercial information
of a telecommunications vendor.
In considering whether this conditional exemption applies to the material held by the
agency, I conducted a consultation with the telecommunications vendor. Document 8
is an extract from the Managed Telecommunications Service Contract for Music on
Hold and, as outlined above, Document 9 is a Project Request.
These documents outline specific services provided to the agency, and provide
technical specifications required to complete work in accordance with the contract. I
am satisfied the disclosure of these documents would disclose the business affairs of
the telecommunications vendor.
I consider providing the exempt material to you, which is not publicly available, would
adversely affect this organisation because it would inhibit the vendor’s ability to
provide services to its clients in the future. Disclosure of the information would place
the vendor at a considerable disadvantage in its future business affairs, as it would
reveal confidential commercial intelligence to competitors. Furthermore, I have also
considered that a Managed Telephone Services Tender is currently in progress,
which increases the likelihood that other telecommunications vendors may gain an
unfair competitive advantage over the vendor in question if its commercial
information is disclosed pursuant to your FOI request.
PAGE 8 OF 12
While I have no reason to believe you would misuse the exempt material in this way,
the FOI Act does not control or restrict use or dissemination of the information once
released in response to an FOI request, so I must consider actions any member of
the public might take.
Public Interest
Access to conditionally exempt material must be given unless I am satisfied it would
not be in the public interest to do so.
I consider the disclosure of the material would generally promote the objects of the
FOI Act, which is in the public interest. In addition, disclosure would promote effective
oversight of and scrutiny public expenditure and increase discussion on Australian
businesses supporting local musicians by using their music for Music on Hold.
Further, I consider disclosure would improve government transparency by facilitating
access to government information and increase the understanding of government
decision making.
However, I also consider disclosure would:
• prejudice individuals’ right to privacy
•
adversely affect or harm the interests of an individual
•
harm the business interests of a telecommunications vendor
•
place a telecommunications vendor at a commercial disadvantage in
providing future services to the agency and other clients
• inhibit the provision of opinions, advice and recommendations within the
agency, which is reasonably likely to diminish decision makers’ capacity to
make correct value for money decisions
• change the way vendors approach respond to tenders and result in the
agency receiving less comprehensive project plans
• prejudice the agency’s ability to obtain confidential information from vendors
in the future, and
• prejudice the agency’s ability to obtain commercial services from vendors in
the future, which would in turn significantly prejudice the agency’s ability to
obtain commercial services at the best value for the Australian tax payer.
On balance, and having weighed the competing factors, I find the public interest
factors in favour of disclosing the material are outweighed by the public interest
factors against disclosure.
I have not taken into account any of the irrelevant factors set out in section 11B(4) of
the FOI Act in making this decision.
PAGE 9 OF 12
Summary of my decision
In conclusion, I have decided to
refuse access to Documents 1 - 9.
I have decided:
• Document 9 is exempt in full under section 47 of the FOI Act
• Documents 1, 6 – 7 and 9 are conditionally exempt in full under section 47C of
the FOI Act, and disclosure would be contrary to the public interest for the
purposes of section 11A(5)
• Documents 1 - 5 and 8 – 9 are conditional y exempt in full under section
47E(d), and disclosure would be contrary to the public interest for the
purposes of section 11A(5)
• Document 7 is conditionally exempt in part under section 47F(1), and
disclosure would be contrary to the public interest for the purposes of section
11A(5), and
• Documents 8 and 9 are exempt in full under section 47G of the FOI Act, and
disclosure would be contrary to the public interest for the purposes of section
11A(5).
PAGE 10 OF 12
Attachment B
INFORMATION ON RIGHTS OF REVIEW
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 1982
Asking for a ful explanation of a Freedom of Information decision
Before you ask for a formal review of a FOI decision, you can contact us to discuss your
request. We wil explain the decision to you. This gives you a chance to correct
misunderstandings.
Asking for a formal review of an Freedom of Information decision
If you stil believe a decision is incorrect, the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (
FOI Act)
gives you the right to apply for a review of the decision. Under sections 54 and 54L of the
FOI Act, you can apply for a review of an FOI decision by:
1. an Internal Review Officer in Services Australia (the
agency); and/or
2. the Australian Information Commissioner.
Note 1: There are no fees for these reviews.
Applying for an internal review by an Internal Review Officer
If you apply for internal review, a different decision maker to the agency delegate who made
the original decision wil carry out the review. The Internal Review Officer wil consider all
aspects of the original decision and decide whether it should change. An application for
internal review must be:
• made in writing
• made within 30 days of receiving this letter
• sent to the address at the top of the first page of this letter.
Note 2: You do not need to fil in a form. However, it is a good idea to set out any relevant
submissions you would like the Internal Review Officer to further consider, and your reasons
for disagreeing with the decision.
Applying for external review by the Australian Information Commissioner
If you do not agree with the original decision or the internal review decision, you can ask the
Australian Information Commissioner to review the decision.
If you do not receive a decision from an Internal Review Officer in the agency within 30 days
of applying, you can ask the Australian Information Commissioner for a review of the original
FOI decision.
You wil have 60 days to apply in writing for a review by the Australian Information
Commissioner.
You can
lodge your application:
Online:
www.oaic.gov.au
PAGE 11 OF 12
Post:
Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
SYDNEY NSW 2001
Email:
xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
Note 3: The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner generally prefers FOI
applicants to seek internal review before applying for external review by the Australian
Information Commissioner.
Important:
• If you are applying online, the application form the 'Merits Review Form' is available
at
www.oaic.gov.au.
• If you have one, you should include with your application a copy of the Services
Australia decision on your FOI request
• Include your contact details
• Set out your reasons for objecting to the agency's decision.
Complaints to the Australian Information Commissioner and Commonwealth
Ombudsman
Australian Information Commissioner
You may complain to the Australian Information Commissioner concerning action taken by
an agency in the exercise of powers or the performance of functions under the FOI Act,
There is no fee for making a complaint. A complaint to the Australian Information
Commissioner must be made in writing. The Australian Information Commissioner's contact
details are:
Telephone: 1300 363 992
Website:
www.oaic.gov.au
Commonwealth Ombudsman
You may also complain to the Commonwealth Ombudsman concerning action taken by an
agency in the exercise of powers or the performance of functions under the FOI Act. There is
no fee for making a complaint. A complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman may be
made in person, by telephone or in writing. The Commonwealth Ombudsman's contact
details are:
Phone: 1300 362 072
Website:
www.ombudsman.gov.au
The Commonwealth Ombudsman generally prefers applicants to seek review before
complaining about a decision.
PAGE 12 OF 12
Document Outline
