CPSU APSC discussions re APS wide bargaining
Dear Freedom of Information Officer,
RE: Freedom of Information Request
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth), I request access to the following documents held by the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC):
All correspondence (including emails, letters, meeting minutes, reports, or any other written or recorded communication) between Rebecca Fawcett of the Community and Public Sector Union ([email address]) and any APSC employee regarding the following topics:
APS-wide bargaining
Common conditions
Gender affirmation leave clauses
Disability leave clauses
Delegates' rights clauses
Pay increase negotiations
Any requests for discussions or meetings sent by the CPSU regarding the above topics, directed at the chief negotiator or other APSC employees, that occurred outside the publicly released bargaining meeting schedule.
Timeframe: Communications sent between June 2022 and February 2023.
Information Redactions
To protect the privacy of individuals, I consent to the redaction of the following information:
Names and contact details of APSC employees below the Senior Executive Service (SES) level.
Processing and Fees
I respectfully request that all processing fees for this FOI request be waived, as disclosure of this information serves a significant public interest.
Format
I am willing to receive the requested documents in electronic format to the extent possible.
Contact for Clarification
Please contact me if you have any questions or require further clarification regarding this request
Ang
OFFICIAL
Dear Ms Pumperknickle
Freedom of Information request number: LEX 824
I refer to your request for access to documents under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act).
We received your request on 16 February 2024 and the 30 day statutory period for processing your request commenced from the day after that date. A decision is due to you on 18 March 2024 (with the actual due date falling the preceding Sunday).
Please note that subject to certain exemptions, information released under the FOI Act may be published on the Commission’s disclosure log which can be found here.
If you have any questions, please contact [email address].
Kind regards
FOI OFFICER
Legal Services
Australian Public Service Commission
Level 4, B Block, Treasury Building, Parkes Place West, PARKES ACT 2600
GPO Box 3176 CANBERRA ACT 2601
This email and any attachments may contain confidential or legally privileged information, and neither are waived or lost if the email has been sent in error. If you have received this email in error, please delete it (including any copies) and notify the sender. Please consult with APSC Legal Services before using disclosing any part of this email or attachments to a third party.
OFFICIAL
Dear Applicant,
Please find attached correspondence in relation to your request.
Request for extension
When responding (including to revise your request), given the large number
of documents that fall within scope of your request, we also kindly seek
your consent to an extension of 30 days to process your request. Please
let us know if you approve this extension when replying on this matter.
Kind regards,
FOI OFFICER
Legal Services
Australian Public Service Commission
Treasury Building, Parkes Place West, PARKES ACT 2600
GPO Box 3176 CANBERRA ACT 2601
w: [1]www.apsc.gov.au
[2]three hexagons[3]twitter icon [4]facebook
icon
This email and any attachments may contain confidential or legally
privileged information, and neither are waived or lost if the email has
been sent in error. If you have received this email in error, please
delete it (including any copies) and notify the sender. Please consult
with APSC Legal Services before using disclosing any part of this email or
attachments to a third party.
______________________________________________________________________
IMPORTANT: This message, and any attachments to it, contains information
that is confidential and may also be the subject of legal professional or
other privilege. If you are not the intended recipient of this message,
you
must not review, copy, disseminate or disclose its contents to any other
party or take action in reliance of any material contained within it. If
you
have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately
by
return email informing them of the mistake and delete all copies of the
message from your computer system.
______________________________________________________________________
References
Visible links
1. http://www.apsc.gov.au/
3. https://twitter.com/PublicServiceAU
4. https://www.facebook.com/AusPublicService/
Dear SM,
Thank you for your letter dated 18 March 2024 regarding my Freedom of Information request (LEX 824). I appreciate you taking the time to assess my request and explain the practical refusal reason.
After considering your suggestions, I would like to revise the scope of my request to make it more manageable for the APSC to process. Please treat this letter as a formal revision of my FOI request, per section 24AB of the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
Revised request:
"All correspondence (including emails, letters, meeting minutes, reports, or any other written or recorded communication) between Rebecca Fawcett of the Community and Public Sector Union ([email address]) and any APSC employee regarding the following topics:
- APS-wide bargaining
- Common conditions
- Delegates' rights clauses
- Pay increase negotiations
Any requests for discussions or meetings sent by the CPSU regarding the above topics, directed at the chief negotiator or other APSC employees, occurred outside the publicly released bargaining meeting schedule.
Please exclude any duplicate documents.
Timeframe: Communications sent between 1 October 2023 and 22 December 2023."
By narrowing the timeframe to just under three months, focusing on the critical subject matter, and excluding duplicates, I hope this revised request will significantly reduce the burden on the APSC's resources while still capturing the core documents to which I seek access.
Furthermore, I believe there is a substantial public interest argument for waiving any processing charges associated with this request. The documents relate to employment conditions and bargaining that affect all APS employees. Transparency around these negotiations is crucial for public sector workers and the wider community to understand how their interests are represented. I respectfully ask that you take this public interest factor into account when deciding on charges.
If you foresee any remaining issues with processing this revised request, please contact me, and I will be happy to discuss further refinements.
Thank you for your assistance with this matter. I look forward to receiving your decision on access to the requested documents.
Yours sincerely,
Angelica Pumperknickle
OFFICIAL
Good afternoon,
Thank you very much for your response. Can you also confirm whether you agree to an extension of time, under section 15AA of the FOI Act, for us to process this request? Under this provision, an applicant may agree to up to 30 days additional time for an agency to process a request.
Kind regards,
FOI OFFICER
Legal Services
Australian Public Service Commission
Treasury Building, Parkes Place West, PARKES ACT 2600 GPO Box 3176 CANBERRA ACT 2601
This email and any attachments may contain confidential or legally privileged information, and neither are waived or lost if the email has been sent in error. If you have received this email in error, please delete it (including any copies) and notify the sender. Please consult with APSC Legal Services before using disclosing any part of this email or attachments to a third party.
Dear FOI team,
Apologies - of course sorry yes that’s fine.
Yours sincerely,
Angelica Pumperknickle
OFFICIAL
Hi Angelica
Thank you for granting us a 30-day extension to process your request.
For your awareness, in reviewing documents that may fall under the scope of your request, one or more documents contain personal information about one or more third parties. In accordance with sections 27 and 27A of the FOI Act, the Commission is required to consult with relevant third parties about the disclosure of their personal information. Pursuant to subsection 15(6) the FOI Act, additional 30 days is granted to process your request.
Kind regards
FOI OFFICER
Legal Services
Australian Public Service Commission
Level 4, B Block, Treasury Building, Parkes Place West, PARKES ACT 2600
GPO Box 3176 CANBERRA ACT 2601
This email and any attachments may contain confidential or legally privileged information, and neither are waived or lost if the email has been sent in error. If you have received this email in error, please delete it (including any copies) and notify the sender. Please consult with APSC Legal Services before using disclosing any part of this email or attachments to a third party.
Dear FOI Officer,
I am seeking further clarification regarding your email dated March 21, 2024, which stated that additional time is required to process my Freedom of Information request (LEX 824) due to the need to consult with third parties about their personal information.
Upon careful review of my revised request submitted on March 18, 2024, I am struggling to understand why third-party consultations under sections 27 and 27A of the FOI Act are necessary. In my original request, I consented to redact the names and contact details of APSC employees below the Senior Executive Service (SES) level. This demonstrates my commitment to protecting the privacy of individual staff members who may be involved in these communications.
Moreover, my revised request is particular. I have named the CPSU official, Rebecca Fawcett, and provided her email address, limiting the scope of communications between this individual and the APSC. My request pertains to APS-wide bargaining topics, which are matters of broad public interest and not personal. It is difficult to envisage a scenario where correspondence on these topics would contain personal or private information requiring third-party consultation, especially given the exclusion of junior APSC staff details.
The FOI Act aims to promote transparency and accountability in government decision-making. The need for third-party consultations should be carefully balanced against the public interest in accessing information about matters that affect the broader APS workforce. In this case, the public interest in understanding the dynamics of APS-wide bargaining negotiations outweighs any potential privacy concerns, particularly given the safeguards I have already agreed to.
I kindly request that you reconsider the necessity of third-party consultations in light of the specific nature of my revised request and the public interest in this matter. If there are particular sensitivities I have not considered, I am willing to engage in further discussions to refine my request. However, I believe the current scope strikes an appropriate balance between access to information and individual privacy.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. I appreciate your efforts in processing my FOI request and look forward to a timely resolution.
Yours sincerely,
Angelica Pumperknickle
OFFICIAL
Dear Ms Pumperknickle
Thank you for your email of 21 March 2024.
The documents that were identified as part of your request contain information relating to a third party outside of the APS.
We note that Part 6.161 of the FOI Guidelines provides that any identified third parties should be provided with the opportunity to provide submissions in relation to the release of their information:
"Where a document includes personal information relating to a person who is not the applicant, an agency or minister should give that individual (the third party) a reasonable opportunity to make a submission that the document should be exempt from disclosure before making a decision to give access (s 27A). If the third party is deceased, their legal representative should be given this opportunity."
To provide any identified third parties with a reasonable opportunity to make any submissions in relation to the release of their information, the Commission considers the application of section 27 and 27A necessary to process your request in line with the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
Kind regards
FOI OFFICER
Legal Services
Australian Public Service Commission
Level 4, B Block, Treasury Building, Parkes Place West, PARKES ACT 2600
GPO Box 3176 CANBERRA ACT 2601
w: www.apsc.gov.au
This email and any attachments may contain confidential or legally privileged information, and neither are waived or lost if the email has been sent in error. If you have received this email in error, please delete it (including any copies) and notify the sender. Please consult with APSC Legal Services before using disclosing any part of this email or attachments to a third party.
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Dear Angelica
We refer to your correspondence dated 18 March 2024 revising the scope of
your request. We thank you for taking the time to narrow the scope of your
FOI request.
We note that the topic “common conditions” captures a significant amount
of documents. In order for the Commission process your request efficiently
and in a timely manner, can you please indicate if you agree to exclude
attachments to email correspondence that are draft versions?
We would appreciate you provide us a response by COB Friday 12 April 2024.
Kind regards
FOI OFFICER
Legal Services
Australian Public Service Commission
Level 4, B Block, Treasury Building, Parkes Place West, PARKES ACT 2600
GPO Box 3176 CANBERRA ACT 2601
w: [1]www.apsc.gov.au
[2]three hexagons[3]twitter icon [4]facebook
icon [5]cid:image008.png@01DA8B5B.41429BA0
This email and any attachments may contain confidential or legally
privileged information, and neither are waived or lost if the email has
been sent in error. If you have received this email in error, please
delete it (including any copies) and notify the sender. Please consult
with APSC Legal Services before using disclosing any part of this email or
attachments to a third party.
______________________________________________________________________
IMPORTANT: This message, and any attachments to it, contains information
that is confidential and may also be the subject of legal professional or
other privilege. If you are not the intended recipient of this message,
you
must not review, copy, disseminate or disclose its contents to any other
party or take action in reliance of any material contained within it. If
you
have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately
by
return email informing them of the mistake and delete all copies of the
message from your computer system.
______________________________________________________________________
References
Visible links
1. http://www.apsc.gov.au/
3. https://twitter.com/PublicServiceAU
4. https://www.facebook.com/AusPublicService/
Dear FOI Officer,
Thank you for your email dated April 10, 2024, regarding my Freedom of Information request (LEX 824). I appreciate your efforts to process my request efficiently and promptly.
After careful consideration, I agree to exclude draft versions of attachments to email correspondence from the scope of my request.
This exclusion applies specifically to the topic of "common conditions." I understand that this refinement will help reduce the volume of documents captured by my request while allowing access to the key correspondence between the CPSU and APSC.
To clarify, my revised request now seeks:
"All correspondence (including emails, letters, meeting minutes, reports, or any other written or recorded communication) between Rebecca Fawcett of the Community and Public Sector Union ([email address]) and any APSC employee regarding the following topics:
* APS-wide bargaining
* Common conditions (excluding draft attachments to emails)
* Delegates' rights clauses
* Pay increase negotiations
Any requests for discussions or meetings sent by the CPSU regarding the above topics, directed at the chief negotiator or other APSC employees, occurred outside the publicly released bargaining meeting schedule.
Please exclude any duplicate documents.
Timeframe: Communications sent between 1 October 2023 and 22 December 2023.
I trust this further clarification will assist the APSC in processing my FOI request. I remain committed to working collaboratively with your office to ensure timely access to these documents in the public interest.
If any additional issues arise, please do not hesitate to contact me. I appreciate your continued assistance with this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Angelica Pumperknickle