FOI 55801
Request consultation notice due to existence of a practical refusal
reason under section 24AB of the Freedom of Information Act 1982
S 24AB consultation notice Sotiria (Position Number 62214764),
Senior Information Access Officer, Information Access Unit, Client Access and Rehabilitation
Branch, Department of Veterans’ Affairs
Applicant:
Mr Alan Ashmore
Decision date:
30 June 2023
FOI reference number:
LEX 55801
Sent by email:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Mr Ashmore,
Freedom of Information Request: LEX 55801
Purpose of this notice
1. The purpose of this notice is to advise you as required under section 24AB of the
Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (
FOI Act) that I intend to refuse your request on the basis that a
practical refusal reason exist, as defined by section 24AA of the FOI Act.
2. Based on the terms of your request, and from initial searches undertaken to respond to your
request, I am of the view that a practical refusal reason exists because:
a. Processing your request, as best the Department can understand the terms, is likely to
result in a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the Department’s resources from
its other operations (section 24AA(1)(b) of the FOI Act).
Next Steps
3.
You have 14 days to respond to this notice in one of the ways set out below at pages 5-6.
You can request more time to consider and respond to this notice. Please let me know if
you would like additional time to respond.
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Authority to make decision
4. I, Sotiria (Position Number 62214764), Senior Information Access Officer, Information Access
Unit, Client Rehabilitation Access Branch, am an officer authorised by the Secretary of the
Department to make decisions about access to documents in the possession of the
Department in accordance with section 23(1) of the FOI Act.
Scope of your request
5. On 26 January 2023, you made a request for access to documents in the possession of the
Department. Your request sought access to:
‘. .I am seeking all briefing papers, updates, etc. from Liz Cosson and her staff to the
new Secretary Alison Frame. .'
6. On 3 February 2023, the Department acknowledged your request via email.
Request is substantial
7. Under section 24AA(2) of the FOI Act, in making an assessment that a request is
‘substantial’, the Department must have regard to the resources that would have to be used:
• identifying, locating or col ating the documents within the filing system of the
agency;
• 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.
8. Further, the Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under section
93A of the FOI Act (
FOI Guidelines) identify matters that may be relevant when deciding
whether processing the request wil unreasonably divert an agency’s resources from its
other functions. These include:
• the staffing resources available to the agency for FOI processing;
• the impact that processing a request may have on other work in the agency,
including FOI processing;
• whether an applicant has cooperated in framing a request to reduce the processing
workload;
• whether there is a significant public interest in the documents requested; and
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• other steps taken by an agency or minister to publish information of the kind
requested by an applicant.
Searches Conducted
9. As the Incoming Secretary’s briefing package was compiled with the intention of briefing the
incoming Secretary on the entirety of DVA’s functions and activities, extensive consultation
across seventeen (17) internal subject matter experts is necessary to process the request.
10. In the time since your request was received, the Department has undertaken thorough
searches for documents relevant to your request. We estimate that undertaking targeted
searches for documents, with the input of 17 separate internal business areas, has so far
taken 55 hours to complete. In addition, we estimate that it has taken 15 hours in total to
consult with 17 internal business areas, five (5) third parties and five (5) external
Government Agencies in relation to the documents.
11. I estimate that there are approximately 2300 pages of material relevant to your request
which were contained within the briefing package provided to the incoming Secretary. These
2300 pages are contained over twelve (12) documents identified as being relevant to your
request. The types of documents that fal within the scope of your request include Executive
Briefs and Minutes, Divisional Records and Reports, Departmental Audits and Reports, and
Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide records and accounts.
Sensitivities Identified
12. From my initial review of the documents, it appears that they contain exempt material. A
brief review of the documents indicates that a significant proportion of the material is highly
sensitive and will require redactions to withhold material considered to be exempt from
release under the FOI Act.
13. It is likely that multiple exemptions wil need to be considered, and applied, to the
documents including sections 47C (documents subject to deliberative processes), 47F
(documents affecting personal privacy), 47E (documents affecting certain operations of
agencies), 47G (documents disclosing business information), 47D (documents affecting
financial or property interests of the Commonwealth) and 47 (documents disclosing trade
secrets or commercially valuable information) of the FOI Act.
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Processing the Documents
14. In order to assess whether the request is voluminous for the purposes of section
24AA(1)(a)(i), the Department processed a small sample of the requested documents (166
pages in total) in order to calculate the time and resources required to complete the full
request. It took an officer of the department six (6) hours and fifty-five (55) minutes to
review and process around 166 pages of material.
15. Applying this conservative estimate of 2.33 minutes per page (although technical and
protected documents wil likely need 3-4 minutes per page), it would take a suitably senior
FOI Delegate approximately 5,359 minutes or 89 hours (11.7 full business days) to review
and mark up redactions for the documents and 15-18 hours to retrieve, review, collate,
process and mark up sensitive protected documents.
Total Estimated Timeframe
16. Further to the previous point, a statement of reasons wil need to be provided to you. I
anticipate that it would take approximately 12 hours (1.6 business days) to prepare a
schedule of documents and draft a decision letter under section 26 of the FOI Act that
suitably explains the reasoning behind the multiple exemption claims made.
17. Further, the seventeen (17) subject matter experts who assisted with searches for the
material will require additional time to review the processed documents and express their
views in relation to the internal consultation. We estimate a further 1-2 hours per subject
matter expert (25.5 hours total) to al ow for this consultation to occur.
18. Therefore, in total, I estimate that it would take the Department approximately 196.5 hours
(or 26.5 business days) to process your request in its current form.
Request is Unreasonable
19. I have considered whether the substantial resource burden would be unreasonable having
regard to the following:
• 196.5 hours
of processing time is, at face value, an unreasonable burden for a single
FOI request, taking into account the need to process multiple requests at any given
time, and the impact such a burden would have on responding to other FOI
applicants and for the relevant business area to undertake their designated duties.
• Despite the Department’s best efforts to progress your request since it was
received on 26 January 2023, it is still going to take the Department an additional
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126.5 hours roughly to finalise the request on top of the 76.5 hours the Department
has so far spent processing the request.
• Due to the nature of your request, at least 17 separate business areas consultants
would be required to spend a significant amount of time and resources in
document retrieval, scoping and consultation activities. This would divert the
resources of these teams away from their core functions.
• While we appreciate that there is public interest in the documents requested, the
Department actively takes steps to proactively publish information relating to its
functions and activities on its public facing website, Annual reports etc.
Ways you can revise the scope of your request
20. You now have an opportunity to revise your request so that the grounds for a practical
refusal are removed.
21. Revising your request can mean narrowing the scope of the request to make it more
manageable or explaining in more detail the documents you wish to access. For example, by
providing more specific information about exactly what documents you are interested in, we
wil be able to pinpoint the documents more quickly and avoid using excessive resources to
process documents you are not interested in.
22. For example, you may want to consider:
• providing further clarification about the information/specific documents you are seeking
access to;
• narrowing the scope of your request to a particular class of documents contained within
the Secretary’s briefing package – for example,
documents relating to the Royal
Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide only.
23. Please note that even if you do modify your request, it is possible that a practical refusal
reason under section 24AA may still exist and the Department may need further time to
process your revised request. This will depend on the revision you agree to make. As far as is
reasonably practicable, we are happy to provide you with further information to assist you in
revising your request so that it removes the practical refusal grounds.
Next steps
24. Before the end of the consultation period, which is
13 July 2023 (being 14 days from
receiving this notice), you must do one of the fol owing, in writing:
• withdraw the request;
• make a revised request; or
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• indicate that you do not wish to revise the request.
25. During this period, you can ask me for help to revise your request. If you revise your request
in a way that adequately addresses the practical refusal grounds outlined above, we will
recommence processing it.
26. If you indicate you do not wish to revise your request, the Department wil proceed to make
a decision on whether to refuse the request on the grounds that processing your request wil
result in a diversion of the Department’s resources under section 24(1) of the FOI Act.
27. If you do not respond in one of these ways within 14 days (by
13 July 2023), the request will
be taken to have been withdrawn pursuant to section 24AB(7) of the FOI Act.
28. If you need more time to respond, please contact the Information Access Unit via the below
contacts, within the 14 day period to discuss your need for an extension of time.
Suspension of processing time
29. Please note under section 24AB(8) of the FOI Act, the time for processing your FOI request is
suspended from the day you receive this notice until the day you do one of the things listed
above.
30. An extract of the provisions of the FOI Act that are relevant to this notice are set out at
Schedule 1.
Contact us
31. If you wish to discuss this decision, please do not hesitate to contact the Information Access
Unit using the following details:
Post:
Information Access Unit
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
GPO Box 9998, Brisbane QLD 4001
Email:
xxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
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Yours sincerely,
Sotiria (Position Number 62214764)
Senior Information Access Officer
Information Access Unit
Client Rehabilitation and Access Branch
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
30 June 2023
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FOI 55801
Schedule 1
Schedule of relevant provisions in the FOI Act
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Requests for access (as related to the requirements for requests)
Persons may request access
(1) Subject to section 15A, a person who wishes to obtain access to a document of an agency
or an official document of a Minister may request access to the document.
Requirements for request
(2)
The request must:
(a)
be in writing; and
(aa) state that the request is an application for the purposes of this Act; and
(b)
provide such information concerning the document as is reasonably necessary to
enable a responsible officer of the agency, or the Minister, to identify it; and
(c)
give details of how notices under this Act may be sent to the applicant (for
example, by providing an electronic address to which notices may be sent by
electronic communication).
(2A) The request must be sent to the agency or Minister. The request may be sent in any of the
following ways:
(a)
delivery to an officer of the agency, or a member of the staff of the Minister, at the
address of any central or regional office of the agency or Minister specified in a
current telephone directory;
(b)
postage by pre-paid post to an address mentioned in paragraph (a);
(c)
sending by electronic communication to an electronic address specified by the
agency or Minister.
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Power to refuse request--diversion of resources etc.
(1)
If an agency or Minister is satisfied, when dealing with a request for a document, that a
practical refusal reason exists in relation to the request (see section 24AA), the agency or
Minister:
(a)
must undertake a request consultation process (see section 24AB); and
(b)
if, after the request consultation process, the agency or Minister is satisfied that
the practical refusal reason still exists--the agency or Minister may refuse to give
access to the document in accordance with the request.
(2)
For the purposes of this section, the agency or Minister may treat 2 or more requests as a
single request if the agency or Minister is satisfied that:
(a)
the requests relate to the same document or documents; or
(b)
the requests relate to documents, the subject matter of which is substantial y the
same.
24AA When does a practical refusal reason exist?
(1)
For the purposes of section 24, a practical refusal reason exists in relation to a request for a
document if either (or both) of the fol owing applies:
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(a)
the work involved in processing the request:
(i)
in the case of an agency--would substantial y and unreasonably divert the
resources of the agency from its other operations; or
(ii) in the case of a Minister--would substantially and unreasonably interfere
with the performance of the Minister's functions;
(b)
the request does not satisfy the requirement in paragraph 15(2)(b) (identification
of documents).
(2)
Subject to subsection (3), but without limiting the matters to which the agency or Minister
may have regard, in deciding whether a practical refusal reason exists, the agency or
Minister must have regard to the resources that would have to be used for the fol owing:
(a)
identifying, locating or collating the documents within the filing system of the
agency, or the office of the Minister;
(b)
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:
(i)
examining the document; or
(ii)
consulting with any person or body in relation to the request;
(c)
making a copy, or an edited copy, of the document;
(d)
notifying any interim or final decision on the request.
(3)
In deciding whether a practical refusal reason exists, an agency or Minister must not have
regard to:
(a)
any reasons that the applicant gives for requesting access; or
(b)
the agency's or Minister's belief as to what the applicant's reasons are for
requesting access; or
(c)
any maximum amount, specified in the regulations, payable as a charge for
processing a request of that kind.
24AB What is a request consultation process?
Scope
(1)
This section sets out what is a request consultation process for the purposes of section 24.
Requirement to notify
(2)
The agency or Minister must give the applicant a written notice stating the following:
(a)
an intention to refuse access to a document in accordance with a request;
(b)
the practical refusal reason;
(c)
the name of an officer of the agency or member of staff of the Minister (the
contact person ) with whom the applicant may consult during a period;
(d)
details of how the applicant may contact the contact person;
(e)
that the period (the consultation period ) during which the applicant may consult
with the contact person is 14 days after the day the applicant is given the notice.
Assistance to revise request
(3)
If the applicant contacts the contact person during the consultation period in accordance
with the notice, the agency or Minister must take reasonable steps to assist the applicant
to revise the request so that the practical refusal reason no longer exists.
(4)
For the purposes of subsection (3), reasonable steps includes the fol owing:
(a)
giving the applicant a reasonable opportunity to consult with the contact person;
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(b)
providing the applicant with any information that would assist the applicant to
revise the request.
Extension of consultation period
(5)
The contact person may, with the applicant's agreement, extend the consultation period by
written notice to the applicant.
Outcome of request consultation process
(6)
The applicant must, before the end of the consultation period, do one of the fol owing, by
written notice to the agency or Minister:
(a)
withdraw the request;
(b)
make a revised request;
(c)
indicate that the applicant does not wish to revise the request.
(7)
The request is taken to have been withdrawn under subsection (6) at the end of the
consultation period if:
(a)
the applicant does not consult the contact person during the consultation period in
accordance with the notice; or
(b)
the applicant does not do one of the things mentioned in subsection (6) before the
end of the consultation period.
Consultation period to be disregarded in calculating processing period
(8)
The period starting on the day an applicant is given a notice under subsection (2) and
ending on the day the applicant does one of the things mentioned in paragraph (6)(b) or (c)
is to be disregarded in working out the 30 day period mentioned in paragraph 15(5)(b).
Note: Paragraph 15(5)(b) requires that an agency or Minister take al reasonable steps to notify an applicant of a
decision on the applicant's request within 30 days after the request is made.
No more than one request consultation process required (9)
To avoid doubt, this section only obliges the agency or Minister to undertake a request
consultation process once for any particular request.
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Document Outline
