Advocates
of open government have often suspected that the Campbell
government tries to get them to run in circles with needless
delays in responding to freedom of information requests.
Evidence
has emerged that one of the ways this is done is through
abuse of section
10(1)(c) of the Act, which allows a public body
to extend the time limit for a response in order to consult
another public body. The "catch-22" is that Public
Affairs Officers for each Ministry are employees of the
Public Affairs Bureau, a part of the Ministry of Finance,
so when a Ministry (other than Finance) consults its Public
Affairs Officer it is consulting another public body, hence
the Ministry claims the use of section 10(1)(c) of the Act.
As a
result of what has so far been an eight month quest to get
statistical information on MSP enrollments, information
that should be routinely available on the MSP website, the
Ministry of Finance referred me to the Ministry of Health
(that added 30 days to the time limit for a response). The
Ministry of Health advised me that it had to consult another
public body before it could respond, hence another 30 days
was added to the time limit. At that point I submitted a
freedom of information request for the name of the public
body that was being consulted. The response, received on
August 10th (a month late), revealed that the Ministry of
Health was consulting with the Ministry of Finance over
an email sent by a Public Affairs Officer for the Ministry
of Health (but an employee of the Ministry of Finance).
I filed
a complaint
with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy
Commissioner asking that an end be put to this type
of abuse of the Act. In addition to ending that game
of sending those who request information in circles, it
should also be standard practice for all public bodies to
state the name of the other public body or third party that
is being consulted whenever it advises that a time limit
is being extended under the authority of section 10 (1)(c)
of the Act.
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