The Office of NSW Information Commissioner was allocated $4 million for 2010-2011, the figure committed by then Premier Rees a year ago, with an additional $0.5 million for capital expenditure in this week's state budget. The revised estimate of expenditure for the current start up year is $2.7 million .The Office has or will have an establishment of 24 positions. $4 million compares favourably with the $5.4 million for the first full year of operations of the Australian Information Commissioner allocated in this year's Federal Budget. Details are in Budget Paper 3- Justice and Attorney General Portfolio , see this pdf 
The performance information includes the Office estimate of about 1,000 contacts from the public this year, 100 investigations of complaints, depending on demand, and plans to undertake 10 agency audits. It will be working towards a range of intermediate outcomes some of which pose some interesting measurement challenges:
¨ rights to access information understood by the public
¨ increased access to information
¨ fewer complaints to OIC over conduct of government agencies in releasing information
¨ fewer formal applications for access to information
¨ fewer people seeking review of agency decisions
¨ improved information management by agencies and
¨ effective stakeholder relationships.
I'd be glad to tell you what's there for Privacy NSW, now co-located with the Office of Information Commissioner but still a separate business unit of the Attorney General's Department, if I could find any reference to it in the Budget Papers. Anyone?
Gee, I hope that Privacy NSW got something!
ReplyDeleteAll I hear are stories about how understaffed they are.
As a business unit of the Attorney General's Department, the budget of Privacy NSW is set at the whim of the Director General of the Department. This surely impacts on the independence of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
ReplyDeleteThat's been an issue since establishment of Privacy NSW 10 years ago Elsewhere those with the function-I'm recalling Paul Chadwick when Privacy Commissioner in Victoria-made quite a point about independence of his office, backed up by legal advice that was published in an annual report. The logical step in NSW now- restructuring Privacy NSW within the Office of the Information Commissioner-as recommended by the NSW LRC, awaits a government response.
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