Right to Information No.: RTI202223-130

Right to Information No.: RTI202223-130

Date of Decision:           23 February 2023

Information Requested

An application made pursuant to the Right to Information Act 2009 (‘the Act’), received the Department of Health (“the public authority”) on 21 November 2023 and accepted on 7 December 2022.

The applicant, pursuant to s15(4)(a) of the Act, agreed to grant an extension on the application for assessed disclosure.

The information requested:

Specifically, I seek the following information.

1. Departmental expenditure for the year to date on the following:
   (a) Consultants
   (b) Advertising
   (c) Travel
2. The current number of vacancies disaggregated by service area and length of vacancy across the Department

You further clarified the information requested on 5 December 2023:

1. Departmental expenditure for the year to date on the following – 2022 Calendar Year.

(a) Consultants – All consultants
(b) Advertising – Vacancy and departmental advertising
(c) Travel

1. The current number of vacancies disaggregated by service area and length of vacancy across the Department.

I have decided to respond to each request separately, numbered above ([1] and [2]).

Request 1

Decision

I have decided to release the information to you in full.

(a) Consultants – All consultants

Department of Health – $7,275,582.80
Tasmania Health Service - $3,012,783.15

Total - $10,288,365.95

(b) Advertising – Vacancy and departmental advertising

Advertising and Promotion - $5,028,656.74
Note: COVID-19 related advertising for this period was $4,685,254.21.

• $4,644,053.37 of which was reimbursed to the Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management (DPFEM).
• Remainder of costs covers White Pages listings, miscellaneous radio, print and online advertising expenses and advertising for recruitment campaigns.
• During this period, 50 per cent of COVID-19 costs were funded by the Australian Government under the National Partnership on COVID-19 Response.

Recruitment - $404,670.56

(c) Travel

Direct Travel and Travel Allowances - $3,274,936.33
Lease, Fuel and Allowances* - $16,757,635.59

*Note: Includes staff private motor vehicle kilometres ($604,718.98) and motor vehicle locum travel expense ($1 257,439.30)

Note: This information is provided on a CASH basis using periods 6 to 12 of 2021-22 and periods 1 to 6 of 2022-23.

Request 2

Decision

My decision is to refuse the request for information.

Statement of Reasons

Section 10 Electronic Information

My decision is to refuse to provide the information sought, as outlined below.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to draw vacancy figures from the current HR system. Once implemented the new Human Resource Information System (HRIS) will address this and other major inefficiencies and operational risks associated with current business systems and processes underpinning human resource functions within the Department of Health (DoH).

This information cannot be produced in its entirety from the Department’s electronic computer systems as it is in a format that is not searchable. Retrieval and collation of this information would require a substantial and unreasonable diversion of resources. The information held by the Department concerning the request for information is held against the individual file of the tenant. Attempts to retrieve the historical information has proven to be challenging and hence pursuant to s10 of the Act (electronic information) the request is refused.

1. If information is stored in an electronic form, a Minister or public authority may refuse an application under section 13 if –

(a) the information cannot be produced using the normal computer hardware and software and technical expertise of the public authority; and
(b) producing it would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the public authority from its usual operations, having regard to the factors in Schedule 3.

Having regard to the factors under Schedule 3 of the Act:

Clause 1(a): the terms of the request, especially whether it is of a global kind or a generally expressed request, and in that regard whether the terms of the request offer a sufficiently precise description to permit the public authority or Minister, as a practical matter, to locate the document sought within a reasonable time and with the exercise of reasonable effort.

The request being of a global kind the ability to locate the information cannot be undertaken in a reasonable time without dedication of resources.

Clause (b): whether the demonstrable importance of the document or documents to the applicant might be a factor in determining what in the particular case are a reasonable time and a reasonable effort.

Even though the applicant is a Member of Parliament, and the information is in connection with departmental vacancies, the consideration under Schedule 3 may diminish somewhat due to this fact but I am not convinced that the weight of importance of the application to the applicant outweighs the utilisation of resources in further assessing the application.

Clause 1(c): more generally whether the request is a reasonably manageable one, giving due, but not conclusive, regard to the size of the public authority or Minister and the extent of its resources available for dealing with applications.

In this context, the resources to be considered are the existing resources required to process the request consistent with attendance to other priorities. ¹ It does not refer to the whole of the resources or possible resources it may temporarily be able to obtain to assist in processing the request. ² Therefore, the resources to be considered are those which would have to be used in:

1. manually identifying the information in the Department’s electronic computer systems;
2. identifying, locating and collating the information from the computer system;
3. deciding whether to grant, refuse or defer access to the information or edited information, including resources to be used in examining the information;
4. extracting the information; and
5. notifying the applicant of any interim or final decision on the request.

The advice of the information custodian in relation to the application is that it may take the dedication of one officer more than five workdays in collecting the information. Such resources cannot be made available for this request without significantly affecting the other work of both the information custodian and the delegated officer under the Act. I further consider that the diversion of resources would be substantial taking account of the number of other Right to Information requests on hand.

Clause 1(d): the public authority’s or Minister’s estimate as to the number of sources of information affected by the request, and by extension the volume of information and the amount of officer-time, and the salary cost.

The advice from the information custodian is that the request will involve an officer being dedicated to manually review the database. A test undertaken demonstrated that the task might take more than five working days. Both the amount of officer-time and salary cost in collating and then assessing the information would therefore be considerable and, in my view, an unreasonable diversion of resources.

Clause 1(e): the timelines binding the public authority or Minister.

The applicant has demonstrated generosity in granting an extension of time for the assessment of requests that cover similar subject matter. Even if the applicant granted additional time for assessing this request, the time dedicated to this application would consequently influence the timelines for other requests.

Clause 1(f): the degree of certainty that can be attached to the estimate that is made as to sources of information affected and hours to be consumed, and in that regard importantly whether there is a real possibility that processing time might exceed to some degree the estimate first made.