Almost two-thirds of freedom-of-information requests are not decided upon within the time required by law.
It has caused the office of the Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, to tell the unit looking after FOI “”to lift its game”.
According to the draft FOI annual report, there has been a general decline in the ACT’s FOI performance over the past three years for response times and granting of access to documents.
On the good side, the report shows a greater percentage of fees were remitted for people seeking information about themselves last financial year compared with the previous year.
Slightly less than a third of requests were granted in full last financial year. A half were granted in part, 10 per cent were refused totally, and the rest were withdrawn or have not yet been dealt with.
In 1989-90, 67 per cent were granted in full, in 1990-91 it fell to 42 per cent and last financial year it fell further to 32 per cent. Refusals to access in full, on the other hand, went up over those years from 4.9 to 9.8 to 10.4.
Response times, too, have been getting worse over the three years. Sixty-five per cent were met within the statutory time in 1989-90 falling to 50 then 37 over the next two years.
Similarly, the percentage of requests outstanding after 90 days increased from 0.5 to 3.5 to 11.
Independent Michael Moore said yesterday, “”It is ironic that this government which says so much about open government makes the one small means of openness more difficult.”
He did not think it was a question of deliberate cover-ups by the bureaucracy, but more a question of incompetence in some areas.
He hoped that now responsibility for FOI had been transferred from the Chief Minister’s Department to Attorney General’s “”we will see some major FOI improvements and changes”.
He thought the hourly search fees and photocopying fees should be cut, but he had no difficulty with a small up-front fee prevent nuisance requests.
A spokeswoman for Terry Connolly said the response rate was not good enough. The unit looking after FOI had been told to lift its game. Stricter controls and more timely processing would be put in place.
“”We are aware of the problem and we are not happy with it,” she said. “”People have a right to timely information. Obviously, it is not possible to get all requests within the statutory limit; no state or federal government manages that. But the ACT position is not good enough and we want it improved.”
On fees, she said that the ACT had copied the Commonwealth FOI regime which had set the fees in 1982. The Commonwealth had since increased fees, but the ACT had not.
The increase in denials to access in full was impossible to explain without looking at each request. However, many denials were only partial ones and often only small amounts of information were excised to protect the privacy of third parties as required by the Act.
According to the report, of the agencies, the Chief Minister and the Chief Minister’s Department were most restrictive, approving only a quarter of requests in full. The Department of Housing and Community Services granting full access in only a fifth of cases, but in all but one of the rest gave part access.
FOI is not a very big event in the ACT. There were only 225 requests in 1989-90, 93 in 1990-91 and 156 in 1991-92.
The collection of fees is pretty small beer, too. Last financial year only $5213.88 was collected compared with $7393.77.