ACT Health contradicted itself keeping bad survey results secret while releasing positive responses, review finds

The ACT Ombudsman, Iain Anderson, overturned a decision to release only the more positive parts of a staff survey of workers in its digital solutions division.

"I consider that both the positive and negative feedback provided in the staff survey would contribute to an informed debate on an issue of public interest. An informed debate requires a balance of information be considered," the decision said.

Health authorities had refused to release information about the division culture review out of fears it could negatively affect the wider directorate.

The Canberra Liberals' spokeswoman on health, Leanne Castley, in April sought a review of the freedom-of-information decision that redacted the survey's negative findings.

"This decision by the Ombudsman is a big win for transparency," Ms Castley said.

Documents, released under freedom of information laws in April, show there was a review undertaken into the digital solutions division of ACT Health late last year, following the implementation of the territory's digital health record.

This review was prompted by "indicators from earlier surveys" and workforce data, however, these indicators had been redacted.

Authorities said, in the original decision on access, there were concerns for staff welfare in releasing this information but it also showed they were concerned the information could negatively affect the wider directorate.

"The concern for staff welfare is paramount in [ACT Health's] consideration and must take measures to protect staff from experiencing stress and anxiety in anticipating uncertainty in this circumstance," the decision said.

Ms Castley said she called on ACT Health to accept the decision and release the staff survey.

"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."

A summary of the survey, shared with The Canberra Times in April, showed only 25 per cent of staff in the division had responded to the survey. Positive findings included that 79 per cent of respondents said ACT Health was a good place to work and 87 per cent said their team supported a positive workplace culture.

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The unredacted parts, released under freedom of information, were largely positive. There is a section on "identified strengths" which only has one sentence blanked out.

But the following section, labelled "specific areas of concerns", was mostly redacted despite being much longer than the section on "identified strengths".

The Ombudsman's review agreed information that would specifically identify staff members should be redacted, but found the text comments from staff could be released because staff participating in surveys expected "at a minimum, partial disclosure of their responses, rather than total confidentiality".

"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," Mr Anderson said in his September 28 decision.

Mr Anderson wrote he had provided a new set of proposed redactions to ACT Health, because the release of some information would still be contrary to the public interest.

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