Two residents whose complaints about Central Coast Council’s handling of their requests for information were found to be “justifed in full” have criticised Council’s response to a councillor about how it will improve.
In its response to Cr Margot Castles’ question, Council outlined a few changes including educating the public, a records improvement plan and releasing more information proactively but said improvements would depend on staffing levels.
Resident Kevin Brooks, who complained to the Information and Privacy Commission (IPC) said council’s response was “typically defensive”.
“It’s odd that IPC recommendations to update relevant policies and provide further training haven’t been included in their proposed improvements,” Brooks said.
“In fact, their response contains hardly anything to improve their own processes or performance.
“Instead they seem more focused on changing customer behaviour.
“They propose educating customers on taking ‘the most appropriate and efficient pathway’ to request information.
“They suggest increasing processing charges – presumably to deter customers seeking information in the first place.
“And based on a sample of one phone call to one unnamed Council they conclude they are under-resourced and presumably customers should therefore lower their expectation.
“Overall, it’s a typically defensive response that is something of a microcosm of what is wrong with senior management culture.”
The Information and Privacy Commission ruled that Council breached the legislation when dealing with Mr Brooks’ Government Information Public Access (GIPA) request.
The IPC came to the same conclusion for another resident, Merril Jackson, who was seeking information about Gosford Library.
“The Council’s GIPA response misses the overarching issue of improving the GIPA system, which, from my experience, is predominantly an internal culture,” Jackson said.
“The Council’s response to the poor GIPA processing targets more improvement directed to the applicant rather than the poor internal Council procedures and practices.
“No one seems to be pointing to the root cause of why the Central Coast Council has so many GIPA inquiries.
“The Council also fails to address the IPC recommendations for the Council to be retrained in the GIPA Act.
“Seriously, how often can the Council use the ‘administrative oversight’ or ‘technical issues’ excuse after continuous poor management and practices?”
Jackson said there was obviously a problem in isolating documentation required.
“There obviously needs to be a ‘key word’ refinement on all Council documentation to ensure Council can search and find the targeted information,” she said.
She said GIPA forms could include suggested search fields to assist staff in finding the specific information required.
“Disappointingly, while the IPC investigates a complaint the Council is sincerely apologetic, (yet) this GIPA improvement response demonstrates insincerity, with the Council sidestepping the inadequate internal GIPA processing and any internal improvement required, other than employing more staff,” Jackson said.
“Council needs to work on building trust and transparency to improve the culture asap – the council might then see a reduction in GIPA applications.”
Cr Castles asked a question on how Council would improve and the answer was provided in the March 25 meeting agenda.
Council said it could improve its processes by: proactively releasing information, with the aim of enabling customers to self-serve; giving customers better information on the most appropriate and efficient pathway to obtain information; applying processing charges for time spent on GIPA applications; exploring the imposition of a fee on informal GIPA requests; and implementing Council’s Information and Records Improvement Plan, to reduce the time taken for GIPA staff to locate relevant information in Council’s corporate records system.
The report also stated the implementation of any of these process improvements depended on sufficient internal resourcing.
Council has one full time and on part time employees working on GIPAs in comparison to 2019 when it had five full time staff.
“Since January 2024, Council has received a total of 2,746 informal GIPA applications and 219 formal GIPA applications,” Council said.
“During 2019, Council’s records indicate that 1,227 informal applications and 121 formal applications were received.
“Benchmarking against other Councils can be undertaken.
“However, information which has been informally provided by one other council indicates that, for the 2024 calendar year, a total of 757 informal GIPA applications and 209 formal applications were received, and that council has four full-time Information Officers.”
Council did not name the other council.
Other residents have contacted Coast Community News about their GIPA issues with Council.
Merilyn Vale
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