Andrew Stokes
Director, Regulatory Intelligence
As the regulator of Australia’s freedom of information (FOI) system and a strong proponent of proactive release of government information, it’s essential that the OAIC walks the talk.
That is why this year we launched a new statistics dashboard that improves public access to data about the operation of Australia’s FOI system as well as a dashboard about how matters are progressing through the OAIC.
The new tools allow the Australian community to see – at the touch of a button – the overall performance of the FOI system and each agency over a 5-year period, plus the number of Information Commissioner (IC) reviews and FOI complaints that the OAIC has on hand.
Our commitment to transparency is especially relevant as we promote Open Government Week, which starts today.
Open Government Week is a global event to raise awareness of open government, supporting everyone’s right to access relevant, usable, authentic and timely information about government processes and decisions that impact their lives.
As a member of the Open Government Partnership, the Australian Government has committed to increasing transparency and accountability
And as a key integrity agency dedicated to managing government-held information as a national resource, we are working to progress these commitments.
The OAIC is increasingly strengthening our ability to harness and publish data, both to inform and educate, but also to ensure our regulatory decisions are targeted and evidence based. To that end, we have established a new Regulatory Intelligence team to progress these initiatives.
Our FOI statistics deliver data points that are relevant, usable, authentic and timely – and now more accessible than ever. They build on the data resources that have been collected over decades.
They help government, agencies, media and the public better understand the volume and type of FOI requests received and how well agencies are meeting their obligations under the FOI Act.
They also give an insight into the sheer volume of FOI requests that are received and how they are processed. For example, last financial year, government agencies received just over 34,000 requests. While 74% of those were processed in the designated timeframe, around 5,500 were not and that is where our efforts at improving the system are focused.
The dashboard helps agencies by providing a clear line of sight on their own performance and that of other agencies. They can apply this data to enhance their own performance by intervening swiftly to respond to increasing applications or systems delays.
Agencies can also compare figures on a quarterly basis and see how they are performing against their peers and where they can improve, particularly in regard to timeliness.
We are not alone in thinking the system can be made better in terms of timeliness and improving access to government information. But the first step in making sure you can identify problems and get the right solutions is improving access to the data at hand.
The OAIC’s caseload figures show, on a quarterly basis, the number of IC reviews and FOI complaints received and finalised, the number on hand and when they date to, and how we are progressing against our performance measures. They show that despite significant gains in review finalisation year-on-year, the OAIC is still dealing with a substantial backlog of IC reviews.
For applicants, it provides an insight into how their matter is progressing and the demands being placed on OAIC resources.
And providing that access aligns with the goals of Open Government Week.
