NSW Audit Office - Awareness - Issue 2003 09 - October 2003

AWARENESSccounting and Auditing Developments Issue 9 OCTOBER 2003AUDIT OFFICE 1AUDIT OFFICE UPDATEUPDATEPERFORMANCE AUDIT REPORT-FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACCOUNTING 3MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT, PREMIER’S DEPARTMENT, DEPARTMENT UPDATEOF EDUCATION AND TRAININGFreedom of information (FOI) laws aim to give people the right to obtain access to AUDITING 7information held by the Government. They have been recognised as a fundamental UPDATEelement of government accountability and modern democracy, and have been URGENT ISSUES 9adopted by governments worldwide.GROUP UPDATEIn this audit we examined FOI arrangements in three government agencies. In total we looked at 84 FOI requests for non-personal information. INTERNATIONAL 11UPDATEWe did not review the basis of decisions. Rather we wanted to find out whether agencies acted in accordance with the spirit of FOI legislation. In particular, whether MISCELLANEOUS 11they: facilitate and encourage, promptly and at the lowest reasonable cost, the PUBLICATIONSdisclosure of information (Section 5(3)(b) FOI Act 1989).PREMIER’S 12Audit OpinionDEPARTMENT FOI Coordinators and their staff were supportive of the legislation. However, the UPDATEagencies we examined can do considerably more to fully achieve the intentions of the Act. AUDIT OFFICE 13BETTER PRACTICEOn the positive side, all three had processes in place to handle requests and had GUIDESmade a number of changes to improve the effectiveness of the FOI process ...