02 November 2022
Tharun Thatikonda
BY EMAIL: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
In reply please quote:
FOI Request: FA 22/08/01326
File Number: OBJ2022/22953
Dear Tharun Thatikonda,
I refer to your email dated 24 August 2022 in which you request access to documents held
by the Department of Home Affairs (the Department) under the
Freedom of Information Act
1982 (the FOI Act).
I am writing to inform you that I intend to refuse your request on the grounds that a practical
refusal reason exists. However, before I proceed to a final decision, you have an opportunity
to revise your request to remove the practical refusal reason. This ‘
request consultation
process’ now provides you with a
consultation period of 14 days to respond in one of the
ways set out below.
Scope of Request
You have requested access to the following:
I request to release all the documents in relation to Skil Select invitation round details held
on 22nd August 2022 like correspondence details exchanged between various business
areas of skil Select department.
I request to release the information in line with document released for the FOI request fa-
200700958
On 29 August 2022, you agreed to revise the scope of your request as follows:
I request to release all the documents in relation to Skil Select invitation round details held
on 22nd August 2022 like correspondence details exchanged between various business
areas of skil Select department.
Power to refuse request
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
that the practical refusal reason stil exists, the Department may refuse to give you access
to the documents subject to the request.
6 Chan Street Belconnen ACT 2617
PO Box 25 Belconnen ACT 2616 • Telephone: 02 6264 1111 • Fax: 02 6225 6970
• www.homeaffairs.gov.au
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Practical refusal
A
practical refusal reason exists if either (or both) of the following applies:
(a)
the work involved in the processing of the request would substantially and
unreasonably divert the resources of the Department from its other
operations
(b)
the request does not satisfy the requirement in section 15(2)(b) of the FOI
Act, which requires you to provide such information concerning the document
you are seeking access to, to enable the Department to be able to identify it.
Reasons for practical refusal
The Department issued a section 24AB notice on 12 September 2021 because the
scope of your request did not clearly identify the documents you were seeking to
access. You responded to this notice and made the above revisions to scope. Your
request has been processed on this basis.
The Department has identified 9 documents as falling within the scope of your
request.
I am satisfied that continuing to process this request would require an unreasonable
diversion of resources, for the following reasons:
• The Department has already expended
3.5 hours on search, retrieval and initial
assessment activities for this request.
• To further process this request, the Department would need to redact individual
instances of occupations that have been issued with an invitation, in the 22 August
2022 round, where those occupations are less than 5 in number. There are 336
pages of invited occupations in the invitation report, which are not filtered
alphabetically nor by occupation group, as this is not the way that data is organised
within the invitation report. A decision maker must therefore individually scroll each
page of invited-occupations list and manually identify the instances where there are
5 or less of an occupation listed. A sample assessment indicates that this process
wil take approximately 6 minutes and 25 seconds per page, or an estimated total
of 35 hours just too preliminarily assess this list, before we seek feedback from the
responsible business are in the ordinary course of consultation. Considering the 3.5
hours of time that has already been devoted to processing this request, we therefore
estimate that continuing to process this request wil exceed
40 hours of work
effort.
Based on this estimate, I consider that the extent of work to service this request is likely
to amount to a significant and unreasonable diversion of the Department’s resources
away from its other operations.
We now seek your assistance in revising the scope in ways which would remove the
practical refusal reason. You may consider omitting the invitation report from scope and
thereby limiting your scope to include only the remaining 8 documents that have been
identified as being in scope, which wil include a list of points scores attributed to
individual applicants and their occupations, as well as internal correspondence relating
to the round.
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Request Consultation Process
You now have an opportunity to revise your request to enable it to proceed.
Under section 24AB of the FOI Act, you have 14 days to respond to this notice in writing
and advise me whether:
• you wish to make a revised request;
• indicate that you do not wish to revise your request; or
• withdraw your request.
If you do not do one of the three things listed above during the consultation period (14 days)
or you do not consult the contact person listed below during this period with respect to
agreeing on a workable scope, your request will then continue to be processed on the basis
of the present scope, noting that this consultation has notified you of the existence of a
practical refusal reason.
Contact
Should you wish to revise your request or have any questions in relation to this process you
may contact me at xxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
Signed electronically
Glen
Position number 60081621
Authorised Decision Maker | Freedom of Information Section
FOI and Records Management Branch
Data Division | Strategy and National Resilience Group
Department of Home Affairs
Document Outline
