OFFICIAL

Dear Mr Smith

I refer to your request for access to documents under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (FOI Act). Your request was received on 8 July 2024.

You requested to access:

1. Risk audit meeting briefing papers, agenda, minutes and presentations.

2. Executive board meeting briefing papers, agenda, minutes and
presentations.

3. Briefing notes for presentations, appearances, hearings, visits,
meetings, lectures or similar.

I am writing to ask you to clarify your request by reply email by 17 July
2024. This is because:

o parts 1-2 of your request capture a large number of documents and
processing them is likely to substantially and unreasonably divert the
resources of the OSI from its other operations.
o the description of the documents sought in part 3 of your request is
such that the OSI unable to conduct reasonable searches to identify
the documents sought.

I have provided further information below for you to consider. Please note
that if you do not clarify your request on or before 17 July 2024, the OSI
may need to take steps to practically refuse it under s 24 of the FOI Act.

Parts 1-2 of your request – Volume of documents captured

Please be advised that:

o part 1 of your request captures an estimated 677 documents, comprising
in excess of 6242 pages
o part 2 of your request captures (so far) an estimated 91 documents,
comprising 1784 pages, and this does not include drafts that may also
fall within scope.

The documents caught under these parts span a period of nearly 4 years
(2021-2024) and concern a variety of topics, including corporate
governance and accountability, finance, legal and operational matters.

Please advise how you wish to clarify this part of your request – we
suggest that you:

o Limit these parts of your request to the finalised meeting agendas
and/or minutes of meetings of the OSI’s Audit and Risk Management
Committee (ARMC) and Executive Board (EB).  
o Include a date range - for example, finalised meeting agendas and/or
minutes of ARMC and EB meetings created during the 2023-24 calendar
years
o Advise whether for these parts of your request you are seeking
documents that relate to a particular subject-matter or topic, or
contain certain information.

Part 3 of your request – Description of documents

Under s 15(2)(b) of the FOI Act, a valid FOI request must: provide such
information concerning the document [sought] as is reasonably necessary to
enable a responsible officer of the agency, or the Minister, to identify
it.

The description provided for this part of your request – in its current
form – is so broad that it is unclear to the OSI what briefing notes you
are seeking to access. Please withdraw this part of your request or
provide further information, such as whether you are seeking to access
briefing notes for presentations etc that:

o were given to a particular OSI staff member, such as the
Director-General
o were authored by a certain OSI work area
o relate to a particular subject-matter or topic, or contain certain
information
o are finalised rather than in draft
o were created during a certain period of time (eg 2023-24 calendar
years).

Without further information, such as that listed above, it will not be
possible for the OSI to undertake reasonable searches to identify the
documents sought under this part of your request.

Kind regards

Sarah

Information Access and Records Manager

Office of the Special Investigator

E: [1][OSI request email]

[2]cid:image007.jpg@01D70603.F616B1F0

OFFICIAL

show quoted sections

OFFICIAL

Dear Mr Smith

I refer you your email of 10 July 2024 revising the scope of this FOI
request to be for the following documents:

 1. "Risk audit meeting briefing papers, agenda, minutes and
presentations":

 a. final versions of documents (i.e. no drafts are requested)
 b. only documents created between 1 January 2022 to date
 c. delete "agendas" i.e. documents that set out the topics to be
discussed in future meetings
 d. clarify that the meeting type is limited to the OSI’s Audit and
Risk Management Committee (ARMC) meetings
 e. clarify that 'presentations' should be taken to mean materials
presented at the ARMC meetings

 2. "Executive board meeting briefing papers, agenda, minutes and
presentations":

 a. final versions of documents (i.e. no drafts are requested)
 b. created between 1 January 2022 to date
 c. delete "agendas" i.e. documents that set out the topics to be
discussed in future meetings
 d. clarify that 'presentations' should be taken to mean materials
presented at the board meetings

 3. "Briefing notes for presentations, appearances, hearings, visits,
meetings, lectures or similar":

 a. final versions of documents (i.e. no drafts are requested)
 b. these may include speaking notes, briefing notes, handouts,
powerpoint slides, recordings, transcripts or similar materials
relied on, provided or produced, when senior staff of the OSI
are, for example, delivering lectures or training, presenting to
parliament or committees, meeting stakeholders or partner
organisations or for similar events.
 c. limited to material produced by or for senior OSI staff including
Mr Mark Weinberg, Mr Chris Moraitis, Ms Helen Daniels or Mr Ross
Barnett.

I am writing to ask you to further clarify your request by reply email by
22 July 2024. This is because:

o parts 1-2 of your request still capture a large number of documents
and processing them is likely to substantially and unreasonably divert
the resources of the OSI from its other operations.
o the description of the documents sought in part 3 of your request
remains such that the OSI unable to conduct reasonable searches to
identify the documents sought.

I have provided further information below for you to consider. Please
note that if you do not clarify your request on or before 22 July 2024,
the OSI may need to take steps to practically refuse it under s 24 of the
FOI Act.

Parts 1-2 of your request – Volume of documents captured

I have recalculated the number of documents within these parts of your
request, having regard to the revised terms of your request. Currently
parts 1-2 of your request capture a total of 62 documents comprising an
estimated 3976 pages. Specifically:

o Part 1 captures 30 documents comprising approximately 1749 pages
o Part 2 captures 32 documents comprising approximately 2227 pages

Presuming it would take 1 minute per page to assess these documents, I
estimate that it would take approximately 66 hours to assess these
documents for your request. This estimate of assessment time is
conservative and may increase, subject to the complexity of the documents.
Please note that this estimate of time does not also include the time it
would take to complete other aspects of processing your request, such as
collating and preparing the documents for assessment; contacting and
considering the views of third parties who may need to be consulted before
a decision is made; preparing a decision on access for consideration by an
authorised OSI FOI decision-maker; and preparing for disclosure a final
decision and any documents that may be released to you. It also does not
include the time required to conduct searches and other work required for
part 3 of your request.

To clarify these parts of your request, we suggest that you do one or more
of the following:

o Limit your request to be for the agendas and minutes of the OSI’s
Executive Board and Audit and Risk Management Committee (ARMC)
meetings, rather than all briefing papers and presentations etc as
well. Typically, the agendas and minutes are shorter in content than
the actual papers etc presented (and these documents represent the
bulk of material currently captured by your request) but they provide
an overview of the topics discussed at the meetings and a summary of
any decisions our outcomes that may have resulted. This may be more
useful for making a targeted request in future for relevant papers
should you wish to do so.
o Refine the date range to be for a narrower time period - for example,
documents created during the calendar year 2024. Refining your request
this way would still mean that part 1 of your request would capture 7
document comprising 692 pages and part 2 of your request would capture
6 documents comprising 537 pages.
o Advise whether for these parts of your request you are
seeking documents that relate to a particular subject-matter or topic,
or contain certain information. Currently these documents span a wide
range of topics, including finance, legal, investigations and
governance matters. This is particularly so for Executive Board
documents which consider a variety of papers presented from areas
across the OSI.

Parts 3 of your request – Description of documents

The description provided for this part of your request – in its
current form – remains so broad that it is not possible for the OSI to
conduct reasonable searches to identify the documents sought. Identifying
the documents sought under this part of your request would require
involvement from all areas of the OSI and it is likely that a large-volume
of documents would also be returned, noting that the documents sought
cover a period of more than 3 years (January 2021 to 8 July 2024) and
cover briefs provided to senior staff for a broad variety of purposes and
topics.

Please withdraw this part of your request, particularly noting the scale
of parts 1-2 of your request above, or provide further information, such
as whether you are seeking to access briefing notes etc that:

o relate to a particular subject-matter or topic, or contain
certain information 
o were created for briefing OSI senior staff for a particular purpose,
such as for Senate Estimates hearings or travel, or for meetings
between certain parties that may be of interest you.
o were created during a certain period of time (eg the 2024 calendar
year).

Kind regards

Sarah

Information Access and Records Manager

Office of the Special Investigator

E: [1][OSI request email]

[2]cid:image007.jpg@01D70603.F616B1F0

OFFICIAL

If you have received this transmission in error please notify us
immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies. If this e-mail or any
attachments have been sent to you in error, that error does not constitute
waiver of any confidentiality, privilege or copyright in respect of
information in the e-mail or attachments.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[OSI request email]

OFFICIAL

Dear Mr Smith

I refer to your email seeking further information. You have asked the OSI
to provide the following information to assist you with clarifying the
scope of your request:

o For parts 1-2, a list of the documents.
o For part 3, a list of topics/issues covered by the scope of the
request.

Parts 1-2 of your request

You may revise your request to be for a list of the documents that would
be relevant to parts 1-2 of your request in its current form. The OSI may
produce such a document responsive to a request under s 17 of the FOI Act.
However, please be advised that it is unlikely that such a list would
contain useful information for making a more targeted request. The
documentation for each Executive Board and Audit Risk Management Committee
meeting is typically filed as an omnibus and the titles of those records
contain only the date of the meeting.

As previously suggested on 17 July 2024, you may wish to refine the scope
of your request to be for the agendas and minutes of meetings of the Audit
Risk Management Committee and Executive Board, 1 January 2022 to date. The
agendas outline the matters discussed at the meetings and the minutes
provide an overview of any decisions or outcomes. This information may
assist you with making more targeted subsequent FOI request should you
wish to do so.

Part 3 of your request

I am unable to provide you a list of topics/issues to which these
documents might relate. This part of your request is described so broadly
that it is not possible for the OSI to conduct reasonable searches to
begin identifying the documents sought. You have been asked to provide
further information so that this work can commence. In its current form,
this part of your request:

o would capture documents covering a period exceeding 3 years
o would require all areas of the OSI to search their holdings for
documents which might be relevant – please note the OSI does not have
a single file where briefs for all senior staff are stored.
o does not specify, even generally, whether the documents:

o relate to a particular subject-matter or topic, or contain
certain information
o were created for a particular purpose (e.g. Senate Estimates), or
for meetings with certain parties (e.g. Department of Defence,
Australian Federal Police etc, or other parties which may be of
interest to you)
o were authored by a particular area of the OSI (e.g. Finance and
Human Resources, Governance and Security, Communication and
Information Access, Information Technology, Legal and Policy)

Next steps

Advise by 22 July 2024 or sooner if possible in what way(s) you wish to
clarify your request. As previously advised, if you do not clarify your
request, the OSI may need to take steps to practically refuse it under s
24 of the FOI Act.

Kind regards

Sarah

Information Access and Records Manager

Office of the Special Investigator

E: [1][OSI request email]

[2]cid:image007.jpg@01D70603.F616B1F0 

OFFICIAL

show quoted sections