The ACT government's Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate breached freedom of information laws after it failed to upload documents onto the disclosure log for more than three months.
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The directorate has said this was due to an "administrative oversight" but have assured all decisions about freedom of information requests were made known to the applicants over that time.
All documents from freedom of information requests that do not include private information are required to be uploaded onto a disclosure log after being sent to an applicant.
Under the territory's Freedom of Information Act, documents "must be included in the disclosure log not earlier than 3, and not later than 10, working days after the day the decision notice is given to the applicant".
But the directorate did not upload any new documents between September 1 to December 23, with the documents only uploaded to the disclosure log following questions from The Canberra Times.
"There has been an administrative oversight in the preparation of material for the disclosure log," an ACT government spokeswoman said.
"In all cases, applicants have received the records requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2016."
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The spokeswoman said the average time to process a request in the directorate was 17.5 working days and there were currently 47 applications being processed.
The ACT government has proposed to make people wait longer for freedom of information requests under a bill before the Legislative Assembly.
Special Minister of State Chris Steel introduced the bill in September which had sought to increase processing times from 20 to 30 working days.
The opposition has also proposed amendments to the Freedom of Information Act around the release of cabinet documents. Opposition Elizabeth Lee's bill would require the government to release cabinet records within 30 days after they are considered.
However, Chief Minister Andrew Barr has said the bill would undermine responsible government.
Access to cabinet documents, which are classified as "executive records" in the ACT, can be made after 10 years in the ACT but people are required to request the documents.
However, there are often delays in this process. The ACT cabinet office in 2021 took more than nine months to release a series of decade-old cabinet documents to The Canberra Times.
A 2020 report into the Freedom of Information Act found territory bureaucrats had been significantly stretched by complex internal processes for requests and requests can result in staff working full-time on the one request for months at a time.
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Lucy Bladen
Lucy Bladen has been a journalist at The Canberra Times since 2019. She is an ACT politics and health reporter. Email: l.bladen@canberratimes.com.au
Lucy Bladen has been a journalist at The Canberra Times since 2019. She is an ACT politics and health reporter. Email: l.bladen@canberratimes.com.au
