M.K
Via email to:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear M.K
Freedom of Information Request LEX 52027 – Decision on access
I refer to the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (
FOI Act) request made to the Department of Social Services
(
the Department) on [DATE]. The request seeks access to:
I would like all estimates held or created by the Department of either:
- the total number and dol ar value of historical social security debts (both fully recovered or
outstanding) potentially affected by unlawful income apportionment decisions OR
- the total number and dol ar value of historical social security debts (both fully recovered or
outstanding) related to earnings from employment.
I am only seeking documents created since the release of the Commonwealth Ombudsman's report on
4 December 2023 recommending Services Australian and DSS "develop an overarching strategy to
manage remedies for customers affected or potentially affected by unlawful income apportionment
decisions."
I am authorised to make decisions in respect of FOI requests under subsection 23(1) of the FOI Act.
Decision
Pursuant to section 17 of the FOI Act, I have made a decision to create one (1) document in response to
your request. Furthermore, I have decided to grant access to this document in ful .
The document is described in the Schedule of Documents at
Attachment A.
Requests involving the use of computers (section 17)
Under section 17 of the FOI Act, if a request seeks access to a document that could be produced by using
a computer ordinarily available to the agency for retrieving or collating stored information, the
Department is required to deal with the request as if it was a request for written documents.
As such, the relevant business area collated information which was stored electronically to create a
document that contains the material in scope of your request. That is, by extracting the relevant material
into a new document.
I note that the extraction of this calculation and figures have not been altered when creating this
document.
GPO Box 9820 Canberra ACT 2601
Email Facsimile Telephone 1300 653 227
National Relay Service: TTY: 133 677, Speak and listen: 1300 555 727, Internet relay: www.relayservice.com.au
www.dss.gov.au
Publication
Section 11C of the FOI Act requires agencies to publish details on how to access documents released in
response to FOI requests on their website within 10 days of release unless except where that publication
would be unreasonable.
The document released in response to this request do not contain any information that would be
unreasonable to publish. As a result, details on how to access it will be published on the Department’s
disclosure log within 10 days of this decision.
Contact
If you would like to discuss any aspect of my decision, please contact me a
t xxx@xxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely
Sarah B
Authorised FOI Decision Maker
27 November 2024
Attachments
A – Schedule of Documents
Attachment A
SCHEDULE OF DOCUMENTS
Doc No Description of document
Decision
1. Document created under section 17 of the FOI Act
Release in full
