Statistics on the whole of ADF IR status and medical restrictions
Dear Department of Defence,
I request the Statistics on the whole of ADF Individual Readiness (IR) status and medical restrictions, broken down into year and gender for the 10 years.
More specifically;
1. The number of ADF members who lose IR currency per calendar year, for the last 10 years, broken into male and female and total ADF.
2. The number of ADF members that are medically restricted and unable to deploy per calendar year, for the last 10 years, broken into male and female and total ADF.
Yours faithfully,
John Alexander
UNCLASSIFIED
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FOI Operations
[email address]
(02) 6266 2200
http://www.defence.gov.au/foi/
UNCLASSIFIED
Good morning Mr Alexander,
Thank you for your FOI inquiry dated 27 March 2017, relating to:
"... the Statistics on the whole of ADF Individual Readiness (IR) status and medical restrictions, broken down into year and gender for the 10 years.
More specifically;
1. The number of ADF members who lose IR currency per calendar year, for the last 10 years, broken into male and female and total ADF.
2. The number of ADF members that are medically restricted and unable to deploy per calendar year, for the last 10 years, broken into male and female and total ADF."
We have received advice from Defence People Group (DPG) and Joint Health Command in Vice Chief of Defence Force Group that they do not hold documents relevant to your request.
While DPG may be able generate documents, in accordance with section 17 of the FOI Act, they have advised that access is likely be denied under section 33 of the FOI Act, as disclosure of such information would pose a security risk.
If you would like a formal decision relating to your FOI Inquiry can you please advise me via return email.
Kind regards,
Lucy Skorupa
Case Manager
Freedom of Information
Information Management and Access
Governance & Reform Division
Department of Defence
CP1-6-A007
PO Box 7910 Canberra ACT 2610
P: (02) 6266 3664
Verity Pane left an annotation ()
There may be some merit to a claim of "security risk" in providing 10 years of historical Individual Readiness statistics, but it does seem a bit of a stretch. If that does pop up later, I think it would be beneficial asking the Department to give sufficient reasons to explain their viewpoint here.
Exemption claims must be based on reasonable grounds, and while I can see an argument that could be made here, it comes down to how much weight that argument could realistically be given. Given these are historical statistics sought, reported at a very high summary level, I think the Department would be pressed to make a reasonable case here for that the information, if disclosed, would, or could reasonably be expected to, cause damage to the Commonwealth’s security, defence or international relations (s 33(a) which the Department appears to be alluding to).
For more information, you may wish to review Part 5 of the Information Commissioner's Guidelines issued under s 93A of the Freedom of Information Act, specifically Page 5 of Part 5, which you can access here https://www.oaic.gov.au/resources/freedo...