Freedom of Information—An Ombudsman's Perspective

Date01 September 2001
Published date01 September 2001
DOI10.22145/flr.29.3.2
Subject MatterCommentary
COMMENTARY
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION—AN OMBUDSMAN'S
PERSPECTIVE
Ron McLeod*
Freedom of Information matters do not constitute a great proportion of the complaints
made to my office. In 1999–2000, there were 260 such complaints, out of a total of
nearly 20,000 complaints in my office's various jurisd ictions.
The subjects of complaint most commonly include delay, the imposition of fees and
charges and decisions that do not contain adequate reasons to support claimed
exemptions. Routine FOI complaints are handled in my office by the generalist staff
that receive them, but we have a few recognised experts in the area of FOI who deal
with more difficult or protracted investigations.
However, the raw numbers tell only a part of the story. It is not uncommon for a
person, sensing that something might have miscued in the handling of a matter
affecting them, to make an FOI request to the agency for relevant material so as to use
the results to support a complaint. The fact that disclosure of documents can usually be
compelled through the FOI Act has helped to make agencies more willing to provide
reasons for decisions and to give access to documents outside FOI. My staff are not
averse to suggesting a complainant make an FOI request if he or she has some concern
about an administrative process but is unable to quite put a finger on the concern.
Overall, I think Commonwealth administration has dealt reasonably well with the
personal information end of FOI. The large agencies such as Centrelink and the ATO
receive many FOI requests from their customers who seek access to their files and they
generally deal with them promptly and efficiently.
On the other hand, the more complex end of FOI—requests for general policy and
administrative documents—can be more problematic. Agencies may involve their own
or external legal advisers which can raise the temperature of the interaction, they may
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* Commonwealth Ombudsman. This paper is an edited version of the paper presented at
the Centre for International and Public Law, Annual Public Law Weekend 2000,
Administrative Law Conference, 10-11 November 2000.

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