Compliments of FOI disclosure log
Posty made this Freedom of Information request to Department of Communications and the Arts as part of a batch sent to 6 authorities
This request has been closed to new correspondence from the public body. Contact us if you think it ought be re-opened.
Dear [Authority name] FOI Team,
I’d like to start 2019 by thanking you all for your hard work and commitment to transparency over the years, and for your correct interpretation of section 11C of the FOI Act.
In particular, I appreciate the fact that in 2018 (and other years) for each FOI request you have made unredacted and/or redacted documents available online for download for the public from your website as per the standard set by the Office of the Information Commissioner FOI log.
It has been noticed that some federal agencies (other than yourselves) are choosing to put statements in their FOI log, by each item, the equivalent of “contact us for access to the document”. In some egregious cases they are doing this for all FOI items!
You are setting a great standard for FOI in this country, and this deserves recognition. I can’t afford any award but you have been named a “Leader of the Pack” in my article about the aforementioned phenomenon which will shortly be published.
I’d like the public to know whether this has been a thankless task or not.
I request, under the Freedom of Information Act 1982, copies of the following documents:
All email (or the last 3 years, if that is too voluminous) sent to the Freedom of Information Team’s email address that feature compliments relating to this department's Freedom of Information Disclosure Log.
If there’s too many of them, and the redaction would require too much effort to do, a simple number of documents over the time period is fine (a year breakdown would be great but I don’t want to push it).
If none exist—that’s fine too. I’d like to know.
If you require any time extension, I grant an extra 30 days.
Happy New Year!
Regards,
Posty
Thank you for your email.
Due to the holiday period the department is not able to action your email
from 25 December 2018 to 1 January 2019. We will recommence normal
operations on 2 January 2019.
Best wishes for the festive season and New Year.
UNCLASSIFIED
Dear Posty
Thank you for your request, we are happy to deal with this request administratively, and provide the following information:
I have completed a search in our FOI email, including archived documents, for any compliments relating to our disclosure log in the last three years and have not returned any matches. I also searched our client service email (which sometimes receives compliments) with the same result. I also consulted other staff who may have corporate knowledge of any compliments on this matter and they had no knowledge of this kind of compliment having been received, and noted it was rare to receive compliments on these matters. It appears the department does not have any records to meet your request.
Please respond if you have any queries about this information, otherwise I will consider the request closed.
Thank you for your feedback on our disclosure log.
Kind regards
Melissa
Department of Communications and the Arts
[Department of Communications and the Arts request email]
2 Phillip Law Street, Canberra ACT 2601
GPO Box 2154 Canberra, ACT 2601
communications.gov.au / @CommsAu
arts.gov.au / @artsculturegov
I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land on which we meet, work and live. I recognise and respect their continuing connection to the land, waters and communities. I pay my respect to Elders past and present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
Posty left an annotation ()
This is one of the few times not having the information is acceptable :)