Dear Department of Veterans' Affairs,

Under FOI I seek copy of the:
* current user manual for the aDVAnce case management system

If that document does not exist or is refused, then I seek copy of:
* any bench or desk level instructions about entering or accessing data from the aDVAnce system that may presently exist; and

* any brief or summary report about the aDVAnce case management system, or any summary reporting it has produced within the last three months

Any personal information of parties who are not public servants conducting their official duties (which is then official, not personal, information) may be redacted with consent, along with any telephone numbers (whether internal or external) and email addresses.

In direction set out by the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C), the following timelines for FOI responses were set out by PM&C:

Day 0 - Request Received - Determine Validity
By Day 2 - Assign FOI Request to Delegate
By Day 7 - Determine Scope and undertake reasonable searches and assess if practical refusal reason exists
By Day 8 - Make decision on charging and calculate charges and prepare and issue charges notification
Days 9 - 17 - Review and Assess documents and prepare schedule, and identify exemptions
(Any third party consultation or practical refusal decision to be issued before day 17)
Day 18-20 - Draft decision
Day 21-27 - Finalise and get decision approval
Day 28-29 - Clear and sign decision
Day 30 - Issue decision and released documents to applicant
Day 44 - Publish on disclosure log, if applicable

If PM&C can not only publish that but publicly commit to adhering to it, DVA should follow the Prime Minister’s agency lead.

I will only consider extension requests where they are made early, and with detail of what steps have already been taken, and when future steps are outlined as to when they will be complete. Generic excuses will not be considered.

I do not give permission or consent to DVA to provide my personal information to the OAIC, including for extension requests.

Given your grossly corrupt track record, and your complete lack of ethics, I’m sure you’ll still try and unlawfully derail the request as usual, but since you only hold the information, its not like I have a choice but to see what new low you will sink to.

Yours faithfully,

Verity Pane

To Leia of Information Law,

Well it wouldn’t be a DVA decision notice without some bad faith creative fiction, but as no stupid bad faith delay tactics were involved, and the most relevant parts were provided, I’ll let you off the hook for this one (expecting DVA to be fully compliant with FOI law is like waiting for Godot, it’s never going to happen, given the extent of corruption and bad faith abuses within the Department).

Again, some credit that after a year of kicking and screaming, DVA has finally been dragged to at least honour the commitment your own Minister gave to Parliament that DVA would never go below providing correspondence without at least the first name and position title of the officer making the decision (obviously your Minister decided that he didn’t want to be slapped for misleading Parliament).

Of course it still is invalid, as it does not meet the requirements of s 26(1)(b) and FOI Guideline 3.181, as it does not include the required information to identify the decision maker (without further research), which as per the OAIC ICON circular of 8 June 2018 (which was circulated to agencies including DVA), states “where the decision relates to a document of an agency, the decision notice needs to include the name and designation of the person making the decision, including the decision maker’s first name, surname and title, to clearly explain their authority to make the decision”.

You can have all the temper tantrums and creative fiction sessions you want DVA, but you make something that should always be straightforward, unnecessary a waste of time for all involved and gain nothing for it ultimately, other than to look as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

But I do think the cartoon characters (Fred Flintstone, etc) and Marvel Universe characters (Tony Stark etc) whose names and file numbers (did you not catch they were hypothetical examples?) you redacted, appreciate your respect of their privacy (seems like you made yourself a lot of unnecessary work there)

So given the FOI is 90% there and the joyless and unrewarding experience of trying to get proper compliance, in the face of your snarling bad faith is only for the masochists, I’ll take the win and leave the systemic issues for the relevant ongoing OAIC investigation (which has borne some fruits given the modest but significant recent changes DVA has made under protest).

Ms Pane