Ombudsman overturns ACT Health FOI decision
The ACT Ombudsman has overturned a Freedom of Information (FOI) decision by ACT Health following a request for review made by Shadow Health Minister, Leanne Castley.
Ms Castley asked the Ombudsman in April to review a ‘baffling’ decision by ACT Health to heavily redact an FOI request for a staff survey of its Digital Solutions Division.
Whilst small parts of the survey report were released to Ms Castley under FOI, all negative material had been redacted, whereas positive commentary was released.
In his decision, the Ombudsman found ACT Health’s reasoning that release of negative material would be contrary to the public interest was, “… contradicted by the release of the portions of the survey report which were more positive…”
“This decision by the Ombudsman is a big win for transparency,” Ms Castley said.
“The Ombudsman comprehensively rebuffs ACT Health’s arguments for redacting my FOI. This will inevitably draw attention to this Labor-Greens government’s lack of transparency, especially when it comes to the many failures of the ACT public health system.
“I now call on ACT Health to accept the Ombudsman’s decision and release the staff survey as prepared and provided to ACT Health by the Ombudsman.”
Ms Castley said she was very pleased that the Ombudsman also found that there was, “considerable public interest in the information at issue which could be reasonably likely to contribute to positive and informed debate.”
“Time and again we hear the Health Minister saying that drawing attention to poor workforce culture is unhelpful, but the Ombudsman said it was:
“… reasonable to expect that disclosure could assist inquiries into ACT Health’s plans for future cultural improvements as well as determining if existing policies and procedures to support staff are sufficient and working as intended.”
On ACT Health’s claim that participants were assured of anonymity and that disclosure would prejudice their right to privacy, the Ombudsman said:
“Where information at issue has been appropriately de-identified, I find it unreasonable to expect that disclosure could represent an unlawful or arbitrary right to the privacy of an individual as no individual could be identified from the material.”
The Ombudsman also rejected ACT Health’s assertion that disclosure would prejudice the ability to obtain confidential information in the future, saying:
“Rather than having a chilling effect on staff providing frank feedback, publication could also have a necessarily positive effect on response rates if honest and/or negative feedback is published and issues raised within said feedback is then acted upon by the agency.”
