Dear Mr Smith

Acknowledgement of your Freedom of Information (FOI) Request – FOI 36918

I refer to your request for access to documents held by the Department of
Veterans’ Affairs (Department) under the Freedom of Information Act 1982
(Cth) (FOI Act).

Your request was received by the Department on 6 July 2020, and was made
in the following terms:

“ - A document that contains the total number of non-APS staff, filling
equivalent roles to actual APS staff in your department.

- A document that contains a list of all position titles within your
department, that are currently filled by non-APS staff.

Typically these non-APS employees are ostensibly employed through labour
hire agencies, and fulfil functionally equivalent roles to their
colleagues.”

The Department has 30 days to finalise your request. The 30 day statutory
timeframe commenced the day after your request was received by the
Department.

Ordinarily you should expect a decision from the Department by 5 August
2020.

Interrupted work practices impacted by COVID-19

The Department is continuing to work through its FOI case load as quickly
as possible. However, the Department is and will continue to experience an
interruption in the way it will be able to manage FOI requests.

As you are likely to be aware, COVID-19 (Coronavirus) has been declared a
pandemic by the World Health Organisation. As the Department focuses its
efforts on managing the impact of COVID-19 on its critical services and
employees, other non-critical services may not be delivered within
expected timeframes. It is possible that during this time, business areas
that would ordinarily have capacity to undertake searches and assist in
the processing of FOI requests may not be readily available to provide
that assistance. This may have an impact on the manner and timeframe in
which the Department can process FOI requests.

We apologise for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience and
cooperation during this period.

Request for an extension of time

To help ensure the Department can manage its FOI functions during this
time, we will require additional time to process your FOI request.

The Department seeks your agreement under section 15AA of the FOI Act to
extend the timeframe for the processing of your request by 30 days. This
would extend the due date for your request to 4 September 2020. It would
assist the Department in managing its FOI caseload if you could provide a
response to this request by close of business, Friday, 17 July 2020.

If agreed, the Department is required to provide your name and contact
details to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)
for its records.

Please note that if you do not agree to the extension of time and the
Department is of the view that additional time is still required, we may
need to seek an extension of time from the OAIC under:

•             section 15AB of the FOI Act (due to it being complex or
voluminous), or

•             section 15AC (where the Department has been unable to meet
the statutory timeframe to finalise your request).

We will advise you if we intend to or have sought any extensions of time
from the OAIC.

If you wish to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to
contact us through the details below.

When the processing period may be extended or suspended

As noted above, there are times when the timeframe for processing your
request might be extended by an additional 30 days. This can occur where
an extension of time has been agreed to by yourself under section 15AA of
the FOI Act or where the OAIC has granted an extension of time under
sections 15AB or 15AC of the FOI Act. In addition, if documents you seek
contain information of third parties and the Department is of the view
that is practical to consult with the third parties, then the Department
will be afforded an additional 30 days to undertake that consolation
process (see sections 15(6), 26A, 27 and 27A of the FOI Act).

The Department will advise you if a third party consultation process is
required and of the revised due date for your request to be finalised by.

Additionally, there are occasions where the time to process your request
may be suspended. This will usually take place if a practical refusal
consultation process takes place (section 24AB of the FOI Act) or if a
charges notice is issued to process your request (section 29 of the FOI
Act). If the Department decides that either of these apply to your
request, the Department will notify you.

Communication with you

The FOI Act requires that you provide us with an address which we can send
notices to. You have advised your electronic address is
[1][FOI #6470 email]. We will send all notices
and correspondence to this address. Please advise us if you wish
correspondence to be sent to another address or if your address changes.
If you do not advise us of changes to your address, correspondence and
notices will continue to be sent to the address specified above.

FOI Disclosure log – Publication of documents released under the FOI Act

Please note that information released under the FOI Act may be published
in a disclosure log on the Department’s website at
[2]https://www.dva.gov.au/about-us/overview....
Section 11C of the FOI Act requires this publication, however it is
subject to certain exceptions, including where publication of personal,
business, professional or commercial information would be unreasonable.

When a decision is provided to you, the Department will advise if the
documents released to you will be published on the Department’s FOI
Disclosure log.

Contacting us about your FOI request

We will email again when the Department has more information. Should you
have any enquiries concerning this matter, please send an email to
[3][email address]

Further information on FOI processing can be found at the website of the
OAIC at [4]https://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-infor....

Yours sincerely

Tayla (Position Number 62217695)

Information Access Officer

Information Law Section

Legal Services and Audit Branch

Department of Veterans’ Affairs

T: 1800 555 254 | E: [email address]

A: GPO Box 9998, Canberra, ACT, 2601 | W: www.dva.gov.au

[5]cid:image001.png@01D0027A.1DAB84F0

P Please consider the environment before printing this email

[6]cid:image001.png@01D32593.9CC39540The Department acknowledges the
Traditional Owners of the land throughout Australia and their continuing
connection to country, sea and community. We pay our respect to all
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their cultures and to their
elders past and present

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Dear Mr Smith,

Please see attached the decision and documents for your FOI request 36918.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Kind Regards,

Tayla (Position Number 62217695)

Information Access Officer

Information Law Section

Legal Services and Audit Branch

Department of Veterans’ Affairs

T: 1800 555 254 | E: [1][email address]

A: GPO Box 9998, Canberra, ACT, 2601 | W: [2]www.dva.gov.au

[3]cid:image001.png@01D0027A.1DAB84F0

P Please consider the environment before printing this email

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** This is an automated response. Please do not reply to this email **

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Thank you for your email. The Department will take all reasonable efforts
to respond to your email and process your request.

Please note that due the threat of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), the Department
is experiencing a diversion of resources that are critical to managing
Australia’s response. This means we may not be able to process your
request within the expected timeframe and where needed, will be seeking
extensions of time to manage requests and may need to consult with you if
your request is not clear or is for a large and unmanageable number of
documents. The Department remains committed to ensuring it can process as
many information access requests as it can during the pandemic. We ask for
your assistance by only making requests where they are of a priority and
to ensure those requests are as specific as possible.

We apologise for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding,
cooperation and patience during this difficult time for all Australians.

More detailed messaging can be found on the Department’s website at
[1]https://www.dva.gov.au/newsroom/latest-n....

Kind regards,

Information Law Section
Department of Veterans' Affairs

References

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1. https://www.dva.gov.au/newsroom/latest-n...

Dear Mr Smith,

Apologies in not providing a response to you sooner.

I have consulted with the relevant business area regarding your question. The business area have confirmed that the overall data provided was consistent of 321 positions. However, when collating the information for your release, the business area had noticed that several of the position titles were duplicates or misspelt and therefore did not fall under the same position name. The business area combined these titles in order to assist with an accurate and proper response. The '321' number relates to the list of positions as it were prior to the edits, and was subsequently not amended to display a current number. We confirm that despite this number being higher than the titles released to you, that the information you have received is the accurate and current.

This number should have been 97 position titles.

We apologise for any confusion this caused you. I hope this assisted with your query.

Please let me know If you have any further questions.

Kind Regards,

Tayla (Position Number 62217695)
Information Access Officer
Information Law Section
Legal Services and Audit Branch
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
T: 1800 555 254 | E: [email address]
A: GPO Box 9998, Canberra, ACT, 2601 | W: www.dva.gov.au

Please consider the environment before printing this email
IMPORTANT: This document contains legal advice and may be subject to legal professional privilege. Unless it is waived or lost, legal professional privilege is a rule of law that, in part, provides that the client need not disclose confidential communications between a legal practitioner and client. To keep this privilege, the purpose and content of this advice must only be disclosed to persons who have a need to know and on the basis that those persons also keep it confidential.
You should consider this advice and take it into account when forming a decision on how best to proceed. If you decide to adopt a position that does not align with this advice, you should not state that DVA Legal Services & Audit Branch has cleared or endorsed a particular position.

show quoted sections

** This is an automated response. Please do not reply to this email **

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Thank you for your email. The Department will take all reasonable efforts
to respond to your email and process your request.

Please note that due the threat of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), the Department
is experiencing a diversion of resources that are critical to managing
Australia’s response. This means we may not be able to process your
request within the expected timeframe and where needed, will be seeking
extensions of time to manage requests and may need to consult with you if
your request is not clear or is for a large and unmanageable number of
documents. The Department remains committed to ensuring it can process as
many information access requests as it can during the pandemic. We ask for
your assistance by only making requests where they are of a priority and
to ensure those requests are as specific as possible.

We apologise for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding,
cooperation and patience during this difficult time for all Australians.

More detailed messaging can be found on the Department’s website at
[1]https://www.dva.gov.au/newsroom/latest-n....

Kind regards,

Information Law Section
Department of Veterans' Affairs

References

Visible links
1. https://www.dva.gov.au/newsroom/latest-n...

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