Statistics regarding mandatory drug and alcohol screening

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Yours Sincerely

FOI Helpdesk

Freedom of Information Section

Department of Immigration and Border Protection

Information updated 30 September 2016

Important Notice: The content of this email is intended only for use by
the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received
this email by mistake, please advise the sender and delete the message and
attachments immediately. This email, including attachments, may contain
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by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.
DIBP respects your privacy and has obligations under the Privacy Act 1988.

Unsolicited commercial emails MUST NOT be sent to the originator of this
email.

References

Our references: FA 16/10/02057 ; ADF2016/62548

Dear Jake

Acknowledgement of Freedom of Information Access request

This email refers to an access request received under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) on 17 October 2016, seeking access to:

‘Since the establishment of the Australian Border Force on July 1st 2015,
please provide the following statistics:

1. The count of staff members who have undertaken mandatory drug and
alcohol tests.

2. The number of tests that were indicated as having a positive reading

3. The type and count of substance(s) that staff were tested positive for’

Your request has been allocated FOI request number FA 16/10/02057. Please
include your FOI request number in all correspondence with the Freedom of
Information (FOI) Section.

Timeframe for request

The statutory time frame provided under the FOI Act for processing
requests is a standard 30 calendar days. Due to the unprecedented number
of requests currently being received by the Department, our processing
times have increased.

We appreciate your patience and understanding during this busy time and we
will endeavour to finalise your request as soon as possible. Although we
endeavour to have all requests finalised within the statutory timeframes,
this is not practicable at this time. Requests that are outside the
processing timeframes under the FOI Act will still continue to be
processed by the Department.

Request for an extension of time

As a result of the significant increase in the number of FOI requests
received by this agency, there are expected delays involved with the
processing of FOI requests at the present time. For this reason the
Department seeks your agreement (under s.15AA of the FOI Act) to extend
the timeframe for the processing of your request by 30 days.

It would assist the Department in managing its FOI caseload if you could
provide a response to this request by close of business, Monday 31 October
2016.

Exclusion of non-SES staff personal details and SES telephone contact
details

The Department’s policy is to exclude the personal details of officers not
in the Senior Executive Service (SES), as well as the mobile and work
telephone numbers of SES staff, contained in documents that fall within
scope of an FOI request. If you require names and contact details of
non-SES officers, or direct telephone numbers of SES staff, please inform
us so the decision maker may consider your request. Otherwise we will take
it that you agree to that information being excluded from the scope of
your request.

Contacting the FOI Section

If you wish to discuss your access request you may contact the FOI Section
using the details provided below.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you wish to discuss.

Yours sincerely

FOI Officer

Freedom of Information Section

Information Management Branch | Corporate Services Division

Corporate Group

Department of Immigration and Border Protection
E: [1][email address]

Important Notice: The content of this email is intended only for use by
the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received
this email by mistake, please advise the sender and delete the message and
attachments immediately. This email, including attachments, may contain
confidential, sensitive, legally privileged and/or copyright information.

Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of this information
by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.
DIBP respects your privacy and has obligations under the Privacy Act 1988.

Unsolicited commercial emails MUST NOT be sent to the originator of this
email.

References

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UNCLASSIFIED

Good morning Mr Fessier

I refer to your FOI request and to our email to you below dated 25 October
2016.

I also note in the highlighted text below, that the FOI Section has sought
your agreement to an extension of processing time in accordance with
section 15AA of the FOI Act.

Could you please confirm if you are willing to grant the extension?

I look forward to hearing from you by COB Thursday 3 November 2016.

Regards,

FOI Officer

Freedom of Information Section

Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [1][email address]

UNCLASSIFIED

From: FOI
Sent: Tuesday, 25 October 2016 8:53 AM
To: '[FOI #2349 email]'
Subject: TRIM: FOI Request - FA 16/10/02057 [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Our references: FA 16/10/02057 ; ADF2016/62548

Dear Jake

Acknowledgement of Freedom of Information Access request

This email refers to an access request received under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) on 17 October 2016, seeking access to:

‘Since the establishment of the Australian Border Force on July 1st 2015,
please provide the following statistics:

1. The count of staff members who have undertaken mandatory drug and
alcohol tests.

2. The number of tests that were indicated as having a positive reading

3. The type and count of substance(s) that staff were tested positive for’

Your request has been allocated FOI request number FA 16/10/02057. Please
include your FOI request number in all correspondence with the Freedom of
Information (FOI) Section.

Timeframe for request

The statutory time frame provided under the FOI Act for processing
requests is a standard 30 calendar days. Due to the unprecedented number
of requests currently being received by the Department, our processing
times have increased.

We appreciate your patience and understanding during this busy time and we
will endeavour to finalise your request as soon as possible. Although we
endeavour to have all requests finalised within the statutory timeframes,
this is not practicable at this time. Requests that are outside the
processing timeframes under the FOI Act will still continue to be
processed by the Department.

Request for an extension of time

As a result of the significant increase in the number of FOI requests
received by this agency, there are expected delays involved with the
processing of FOI requests at the present time. For this reason the
Department seeks your agreement (under s.15AA of the FOI Act) to extend
the timeframe for the processing of your request by 30 days.

It would assist the Department in managing its FOI caseload if you could
provide a response to this request by close of business, Monday 31 October
2016.

Exclusion of non-SES staff personal details and SES telephone contact
details

The Department’s policy is to exclude the personal details of officers not
in the Senior Executive Service (SES), as well as the mobile and work
telephone numbers of SES staff, contained in documents that fall within
scope of an FOI request. If you require names and contact details of
non-SES officers, or direct telephone numbers of SES staff, please inform
us so the decision maker may consider your request. Otherwise we will take
it that you agree to that information being excluded from the scope of
your request.

Contacting the FOI Section

If you wish to discuss your access request you may contact the FOI Section
using the details provided below.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you wish to discuss.

Yours sincerely

FOI Officer

Freedom of Information Section

Information Management Branch | Corporate Services Division

Corporate Group

Department of Immigration and Border Protection
E: [2][email address]

Important Notice: The content of this email is intended only for use by
the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received
this email by mistake, please advise the sender and delete the message and
attachments immediately. This email, including attachments, may contain
confidential, sensitive, legally privileged and/or copyright information.

Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of this information
by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.
DIBP respects your privacy and has obligations under the Privacy Act 1988.

Unsolicited commercial emails MUST NOT be sent to the originator of this
email.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[email address]

UNCLASSIFIED

FOI Reference: FA 16/10/02057

Good afternoon Mr Fessier,

Thank you for your email below.

Your due date for your FOI request will now fall on 16 December 2016.

However, due to the unprecedented number of requests currently being
received by the Department, and as our processing times have increased, we
will endeavour to finalise your request as soon as possible.

Although we endeavour to have all requests finalised within the statutory
timeframes, this may not be practicable at this time. Requests that are
outside the processing timeframes under the FOI Act will still continue to
be processed by the Department.

Thank you for your assistance. We will be in contact once we have heard
from the relevant business area as to whether the information you have
sought, can be provided from the Department’s databases.

Regards

Freedom of Information Section

Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [1][email address]

show quoted sections

UNCLASSIFIED

Good afternoon Mr Fessier,

Thank you for your email below.

I apologise for the delay in responding to your FOI request.

Through discussions and consultation with the business area, I have
determined that there are two documents which meet the scope of your
request and which are available publicly.

Please find below links to two documents that provide details in answering
your FOI request.

In addition, I have provided a third link to the Drugs and Alcohol
Instruction and Guideline document which is also publicly available.

Document 1 is available from
[1]https://www.border.gov.au/AccessandAccou...
Refer to the first listing - integrity-drug-testing

Document 2 -
[2]http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Busi...
Refer to document ref: QoN No - SE16/110

A further document which may provide you with further background
information, is the Drugs and Alcohol Instruction and Guideline document,
available from
[3]https://www.border.gov.au/AccessandAccou...

As I believe that these documents meet the scope of your FOI request, I
will now consider that your FOI request can be withdrawn. Alternatively
if you are not agreeable to withdrawing your FOI request, could you please
contact our office by close of business on 11 January 2017 via email at
[4][email address]

Kind regards

Freedom of Information Section
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [email address]

show quoted sections

UNCLASSIFIED

Good morning Mr Fessier,

Thank you for your email.

I will refer your question onto the relevant business area, however my understanding is that the Department's database does not record the numbers and types of substances in a discrete document, that we could provide to you without significant manual searching and manipulation of data. However, I will discuss with the business area to determine if there is something similar that we could potentially offer.

I will be in touch in the next few days.

Regards,
Karen

Freedom of Information Section
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [email address]

show quoted sections

UNCLASSIFIED

Good afternoon Mr Fessier,

I refer to the email trail below regarding your FOI request.

The scope of your request for documents is:

Since the establishment of the Australian Border Force on July 1st 2015,
please provide the following statistics:

1. The count of staff members who have undertaken mandatory drug and
alcohol tests.

2. The number of tests that were indicated as having a positive reading

3. The type and count of substance(s) that staff were tested positive
for

I have interpreted from your email dated 5 January 2017 (below) that the
documents I have provided to you administratively (IE: outside the Freedom
of Information Act), would meet the scope of your request in relation to
Items 1 and 2 above.

In relation to Item 3 of your request, I have now received advice from
the business area, that the Department has identified one document which
would potentially fall within the scope of Item 3.   This document is a
three page 'Back Pocket Brief', covering the Department’s Drug and Alcohol
Management Program Key Statistics. The document includes data from
2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16. The data for the 2015/16 period is
recorded until March 2016, which was the last time that this data was
collected.

I note that you have not provided a time frame for the period of
statistics you are seeking.   As such are you happy for me to consider
release of this document for the purposes of answering Item 3 of your FOI
request?

I look forward to hearing from you by COB 13 January 2017.

Regards,

Karen
Freedom of Information Section
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [1][email address]

show quoted sections

UNCLASSIFIED

Good afternoon Mr Fessier,

Thank you for your email below.

I will now progress your FOI request on the following basis.

As items 1 and 2 of your request have now been satisfied through an
administrative process, I will remove those items from the scope of your
FOI request.

The scope of your FOI request will now be modified to show that you are
seeking formal access to documents under the FOI Act, which meet Item 3
only, being the document titled

‘Brief No.BP04, Department of Immigration and Border Protection - Budget
Estimates – May 2016 BACK POCKET BRIEF. BE2016 - BP04 - Drug and Alcohol
Management Program.

I will now work with the decision maker to start assessing the document to
determine if any redactions are required to be made to the document, and
to start drafting a decision letter.

I expect that this will take a further three weeks to finalise your
request.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to
contact me.

Regards

Karen

Freedom of Information Section

Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [1][email address]

show quoted sections

FA 16 10 02057 decision letter.pdf

286K Download View as HTML
FA 16 10 02057 documents released.pdf

143K Download View as HTML

Link: [1]File-List

UNCLASSIFIED

Our references: FA 16/10/02057; ADF2016/62548

Dear Mr Fessier

I refer to your FOI request received on 17 October 2016, seeking access to
the following:

· The current count of staff members who have undertaken mandatory
drug and alcohol tests (Item 1)

· The number of tests that were indicated as having a positive
reading (Item 2)

· The type and count of substance(s) that staff were tested
positive for. (Item 3)

The Department has made a decision on this request. Please see attached
the signed decision letter and documents released under the FOI Act.

This request has now been closed.

Yours sincerely,

Katie Meyboom
FOI Officer

Information Management Branch

Corporate Services Division | Corporate Group

Department of Immigration and Border Protection

PO Box 25, BELCONNEN ACT 2616
Email: [2][email address]

UNCLASSIFIED

Important Notice: The content of this email is intended only for use by
the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received
this email by mistake, please advise the sender and delete the message and
attachments immediately. This email, including attachments, may contain
confidential, sensitive, legally privileged and/or copyright information.

Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of this information
by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.
DIBP respects your privacy and has obligations under the Privacy Act 1988.

Unsolicited commercial emails MUST NOT be sent to the originator of this
email.

References

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2. mailto:[email address]

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