Annual Returns
The Attorney-General is the Minister responsible for the administration of the Freedom of Information Act. The Attorney is required to report every year to Parliament about the operation of the Act (see section 64 of the Act). The FOI Annual Report is generally tabled at the end of Parliament’s Spring sittings.
In early July each year the Department of Justice sends all agencies covered by the FOI Act a detailed form for FOI officers to record data concerning FOI matters handled in the previous financial year (ie 1 July to 30 June). Agencies are asked to return these forms so their FOI data can be included in the Annual Report.
Agencies are required to provide the following information:
- Number of personal and non personal requests received by the agency.
- Number of cases where access was granted in full, in part or denied in full.
- Number of internal reviews conducted.
- Number of internal reviews where the original decision was confirmed, varied or overturned.
- Number of VCAT appeals lodged.
- Number of VCAT appeals decided in the period.
- Number of VCAT appeals where VCAT granted full access, part access or denied access in full.
- Number of times in which each exemption was used in requests, internal reviews and VCAT appeals.
- Names and titles of decision makers.
- The total dollar amount of application fees collected and waived.
- The total dollar amount of charges collected and waived.
It is very important that agencies keep accurate data on each of the FOI requests they deal with so the Annual Report return is an accurate reflection of the agency’s FOI activity over the year. Statistics can either be held in hard copy format or recorded on a database. Once the Department receives the FOI data from agencies it is carefully checked and collated into the Annual Report. Where there is a query, the Department contacts the agency concerned to clarify the issue.
Once the report is tabled in Parliament, the data provided by agencies is available to the public. It is therefore imperative that the information provided by agencies is correct.
Any queries about the Annual Report can be directed to foiannualreport@justice.vic.gov.au.