Familiar ring to Canadian journalist disclosure log woes

Surprise!BC flag

I'm sure journalists won't need prompting to bring to the attention of Australian Information Commissioner John McMillan the statement by the British Columbia Minister for Labour, Citizens' Services and Open Government that the government has no plans for simultaneous release of documents to the freedom of information applicant and the public. The statement followed a report by the province information and privacy commissioner that found an agency adopting this practice:

"They are narrowly within scope of the law. However, I'm finding the practice is offside the spirit of the law, which is about open and accountable government," the commissioner said.

In arguments that have a familiar ring here, media groups in Canada said the practice "was designed to discourage requests, because journalists will be less willing to put the time and money into a request when they know their competitors will have the same information as quickly as they will." The commissioner recommended the agency provide at least a 24-hour delay in posting records from FOI requests to its website.

The Australian Commissioner having floated a couple of options in a draft, left things up to each agency in the final version of the guidelines (Part 14) on the Disclosure Log:

Agencies and ministers are encouraged to consider this issue and to decide upon an appropriate approach to publishing information in their disclosure log. It is advisable that each agency and minister adopts a guiding principle or practice as to when accessed information will be published under s 11C, so that applicants know of that practice in advance and that they will be treated similarly to other applicants. Further, if an agency or minister decides to provide access to the FOI applicant as at the same time it publishes information in its disclosure log, the agency or minister should consider reducing or waiving any charges it may otherwise have imposed under s 29.. (14.25)

I haven't looked too far so don't know if this is common, but Foreign Affairs and Trade for one have announced the practice of updating the log weekly on a Thursday.

May Day means Publication D day in Canberra

The new publication provisions of the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act took effect from 1 May so these logos are prominent on many agency websites today, and are linked to the documents now required to be published. Prime Minister and Cabinet, Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence are just some that seem to have done a good job and even though others such as Health and Ageing and Immigration and Citizenship don't have the flags flying on the home page, the relevant documents can be found with a little digging. 

Views sought on Publication Scheme and Disclosure logs

The Office of Australian Information Commissioner has two papers out for comment by 28 March, both on aspects of the FOI reforms to commence on 1 May: a Publication Scheme draft using that office as the model, and a Discussion Paper, Disclosure Log.

Bradford District Care Trust (UK)

The Publication Scheme draft (p 8) commendably indicates the OAIC intends to go beyond the mandatory publication requirement to publish additional information about priorities, finances, lists including agency contracts, grants and appointments, and links to data sets, submissions to other bodies, and policies.These (mostly) are the headings used in the UK/ Queensland/Tasmanian publication schemes. An unexplained mystery is why the government chose not to legislate or mandate something along these lines.

The Disclosure Log paper provides guidance on the requirement from 1 May to publish a register of information that has been released under the FOI Act.

"The purpose of the disclosure log is to provide the public with ready access to information that has already been publicly released by an agency or minister. This advances in a practical way the open government objective of the FOI Act. Disclosure logs, together with the Information Publication Scheme that also commences on 1 May 2011, will facilitate a pro-disclosure culture across government."

Some in media circles are concerned about the legislative requirement that information is to be posted to the disclosure log online within ten working days after the FOI applicant was given access to a document, raising the prospect that a journalist applicant having done the hard yards to gain access could be scooped by a competitor who simply crawls the logs. A bigger concern is where an agency or minister publishes information at the same time that it is given to a journalist in response to an FOI request. The suggestion is a delay of at least a few days (the Queensland act gives  at least three days exclusivity to the applicant) would enable the journalist applicant time to analyse the information and possibly write a story for publication.

The paper (pp 14-16) outlines the issue:

RBA disclosure to one, to all

As Sean Parnell reports in The Australian today, the Reserve Bank appears to be the first Commonwealth agency to introduce a "disclosure log" ahead of the Freedom of Act requirement that commences on 1 May, posting this notice on its website:

"In keeping with the intentions of the Act, and the Government's policy objective of enhancing a culture of disclosure across agencies, the Bank's policy generally is to release (via this website) documents provided to applicants in response to FOI applications. Such releases will be made publicly available at the same time as documents are released to the applicant. Facilities to inspect documents to which access has been granted are available."