Dear Commonwealth Ombudsman,

In an article published in the Australian on 9 February 2022 entitled “Federal Court boss warned on job rule sidestep” the Federal Court’s Assistant People and Culture Director, Matt Asquith, admitted that the decision to classify registrars into EL2 and SES1 bands is primarily based on two factors:

a) additional responsibilities undertaken; and
b) “[the] SES cap the Court has, and if the positions can fit within the cap.”

Pursuant to the FOI Act, I request access to any documents in the possession of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman that show that consideration of the number of capped SES positions in an agency should ever be a relevant consideration when evaluating the classification for a group of duties to be performed in an Agency.

Pursuant to the FOI Act, I also request access to any documents in the possession of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman that show that a role is capable of being classified at more than one classification, depending on the complexity of the group of duties to be performed, when one of the proposed classifications is Senior Executive Band 1.

Yours faithfully,

Ray B1

Dear Mr Parkhurst,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Commonwealth Ombudsman's handling of my FOI request 'Classification of vacancies'.

You have not addressed the whole of my FOI request.

My FOI request was worded as follows:

In an article published in the Australian on 9 February 2022 entitled “Federal Court boss warned on job rule sidestep” the Federal Court’s Assistant People and Culture Director, Matt Asquith, admitted that the decision to classify registrars into EL2 and SES1 bands is primarily based on two factors:

a) additional responsibilities undertaken; and
b) “[the] SES cap the Court has, and if the positions can fit within the cap.”

Pursuant to the FOI Act, I request access to any documents in the possession of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman that show that consideration of the number of capped SES positions in an agency should ever be a relevant consideration when evaluating the classification for a group of duties to be performed in an Agency.

Pursuant to the FOI Act, I also request access to any documents in the possession of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman that show that a role is capable of being classified at more than one classification, depending on the complexity of the group of duties to be performed, when one of the proposed classifications is Senior Executive Band 1.

In your letter of decision, you state:

I refer to your email dated 12 March 2022 in which you requested access to certain documents under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act). Your request was framed in the following way:

‘...any documents in the possession of the Office of the Commonwealth
Ombudsman that show that consideration of the number of capped SES positions
in an agency should ever be a relevant consideration when evaluating the
classification for a group of duties to be performed in an Agency...’

This letter constitutes notice of my decision on your request for access. I am authorised to make decisions on behalf of our Office under s 23 of the FOI Act.

Decision

We have searched our records for any documents we may hold which fall within the scope of your
request. Our searches did not identify any relevant documents.

Subsection 24A(1) of the FOI Act permits refusal of a request for access to a document where all reasonable steps have been taken to find the requested document or documents and the agency or Minister is satisfied that the documents do not exist. Having regard to the outcome of our searches for any documents relevant to your request, I have decided to refuse your request under subsection 24A(1) of the FOI Act.

You have not addressed the following paragraph of my request:

Pursuant to the FOI Act, I also request access to any documents in the possession of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman that show that a role is capable of being classified at more than one classification, depending on the complexity of the group of duties to be performed, when one of the proposed classifications is Senior Executive Band 1.

Please ask the person who is to conduct the internal review to address the entire FOI request, as opposed to half of the FOI request.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/c...

Yours faithfully,

Ray B1