Records
Dear Department of Social Services,
Information on George Hatzimargaritis
Yours faithfully,John smith
Thank you for contacting the Freedom of Information (FOI) inbox of the
Commonwealth Department of Social Services (DSS). Your email, should it be
a request for access to documents under the Freedom of Information Act
1982, will be actioned by the appropriate team member.
If your email is for any other enquiry you should direct it to
[1][email address]. It will not be actioned from this inbox.
GENERAL INFORMATION
If you are seeking general information about FOI, you may find the
following websites useful:
[2]http://www.dss.gov.au/contact/freedom-of...
[3]http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-inform...
PROCESS
An FOI officer has received your email and it will be actioned
accordingly. In the case of a valid FOI request, you can expect us to
provide an acknowledgment that the request has been received as soon as
practicable, but in any case no later than 14 days after today.
REQUESTS OUTSIDE OFFICE HOURS
Please note that if this message has been received outside our business
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a public holiday, your request will be actioned on the next business day.
Kind regards,
DSS FOI Team
Email: [4][Department of Social Services request email]
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.dss.gov.au/contact/freedom-of...
3. http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-inform...
4. mailto:[Department of Social Services request email]
Dear Mr Smith,
For a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to be valid, it must:
• be in writing;
• state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act;
• provide sufficient information concerning the document(s) to assist us to identify the document(s) and process your request; and
• specify how notices under the FOI Act may be sent to you.
As you are requesting personal information relating to another individual, could you please provide evidence of your authority to act and receive personal information on Mr George Hatzimargaritis’ behalf as soon as possible.
Furthermore, your request, as currently worded, does not provide sufficient information to assist the Department in identifying the documents you are seeking. It would assist the Department if you could provide further details, for example, a particular service, program, benefit, etc. that Mr George Hatzimargaritis may have received or been involved with.
On this basis, the Department has not deemed your request as valid and will await your reply.
Kind regards,
Information Team
Department of Social Services
Locutus Sum left an annotation ()
It is a surprise to me that the Department did not refuse the request on the ground of invalidity. The single sentence in the applicant's email is not a request. I am not even sure that a native speaker of English will think that "Information on X" is a complete sentence. Yet the Department has been kind and asked for clarification instead of only giving a refusal.