Ms Roxon asked the Minister for Education, Science and Training, upon notice, on 1 March 2004:

(1) Can the Minister indicate (a) whether the Minister's department has a dedicated Freedom of Information (FOI) officer, and (b) how many officers are employed to deal with FOI requests, and (c) at what levels they are employed.

(2) How many applications did the department have under the FOI Act in the 2002-2003 financial year and how did this figure compare to previous years.

(3) How many internal reviews of applications occurred in the last financial year and how many internal reviews affirmed the original decision.

(4) Can the information in (2) and (3) be broken down into applications requesting individual information and applications requesting information for other reasons (i.e. media, opposition MPs etc).

(5) What proportion of cases go to external review and what proportion of these are upheld.

(6) In respect of fees for FOI applications, (a) how much was charged, (b) how much was actually collected, and (c) what proportion of fees were waived.

(7) How much did the Minister's department spend in defending FOI appeals.

(8) In respect of refusals to grant requests, can the Minister provide details on (a) which exemption categories are used when information is refused, and (b) what proportion of refusals are in each category (i.e. commercial-in-confidence and other categories).

(9) Will the Minister provide statistics over the last 5 years indicating whether the use of particular exemption categories is static, falling or increasing.

Dr Nelson (Minister for Education, Science and Training) —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:

(1) (a) The Department has one designated Freedom of Information Coordinator who is located in the National Office in Canberra.

(b} and (c) The Freedom of Information Coordinator is employed to deal with FOI requests and also performs other duties. This officer, who is at the APS 5 level, is not an authorised decision maker, but administers the processing of requests.

The Secretary has granted authorisations to certain staff to make decisions under the FOI Act for the whole Department. These are the staff occupying the offices of Deputy Secretary (3) the Department's Chief Lawyer (1) the Principal Government Lawyer who is Director of the Litigation and External Review Section (1) and the Senior Government Lawyer in the Litigation and External Review Section (1).

(2) The information for the 2002-03 financial year is found in the 2002-2003 Annual Report by the Attorney-General to the Parliament on the Operation of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (“the FOI Annual Report”), Appendix A. Comparisons to previous years may be made by reference to information in previous FOI Annual Reports

(3) This information is found in the FOI Annual Report, Appendix E.

(4) This information is found in the FOI Annual Report, Appendix A, under the heading “Requests Received from Applicant”, where sub-heading `P' represents applications principally relating to requests for access to documents containing personal information and sub-heading `O' relates to other requests.

(5) In 2002-2003, 27 applications were received. Two requests were submitted to the AAT for external review, a proportion of 7.4%. One appeal was withdrawn prior to hearing and one was rejected as not being within the AAT's jurisdiction, so the proportion of appeals upheld was 0.0%.

There were no review applications lodged with bodies other than the AAT.

(6) (a) Charges: In the period, $783.00 in charges were collected.

(b) Fees: In the period, $510.00 in application fees were collected.

(c) Proportion of fees waived: In the period, an amount of $720 in application fees was potentially collectable. $210 in fees were remitted. Thus, approximately 29.17% of fees were remitted.

The proportion of charges that was waived cannot be provided from existing records. In those cases where charges were waived, the decision to waive was made without a prior calculation or recording of a precise figure for the charges that might otherwise have been collected.

(7) This information is found in the FOI Annual Report, Appendix L. In 2002-2003 the Department spent nothing defending FOI appeals.

(8) (a) In the period, the following exemption categories were used. The number in brackets represents the number of cases in which it was claimed.

Section Exemption

36 Internal working documents (1)

37 Documents affecting the enforcement of law and protection of public safety (1)

41 Documents affecting personal privacy (9)

43 Documents relating to business affairs etc (2)

45 Documents containing material obtained in confidence (2)

(b) It is not possible to provide a meaningful answer to this, as most requests involved a number of documents and more than one exemption may be claimed over each document or in respect of each request. The number of exemptions referred to above does not equate to the total number of requests decided in the period because the annual total includes both requests where access was granted in full, as well as requests where access was refused under section 24A, which is not an exemption category.

(9) It is not possible to provide a meaningful answer to this question, for the same reasons outlined in respect of question 8(b).