Archived - Annual Report to Parliament on the Administration of the Access to Information Act 2015–2016

Introduction

Purpose of the Access to Information Act

Mandate of the Department of Finance Canada

Administration of the Access to Information Act

Access to Information and Privacy Division

Principles on Assistance to Applicants

Educational and Training Activities

Policies, Guidelines, Procedures and Initiatives.

Internal Audit of Systems and Processes

Federal Court of Canada Decision on Fees

Other Activities

Delegation of Authority

Information Holdings

Interpretation of the Statistical Report (Annex A)

Part 1 – Requests under the Access to Information Act

Number of Formal Requests

Other Requests

Sources of Requests

Part 2 – Requests Closed During the Reporting Period

Disposition of Requests

Completion Time

Exemptions Invoked

Exclusions Cited

Format of Information Released

Complexity

Deemed Refusals

Translations

Part 3 – Extensions

Part 4 – Fees

Part 5 – Consultations Received from Other Institutions and Organizations

Part 6 – Completion Time of Consultations on Cabinet Confidences

Part 7 – Complaints/Investigations/Audits

Part 8 – Appeals to the Federal Court of Canada

Part 9 – Resources Related to the Access to Information Act

Monitoring of Requests

Annex A - Statistical Report on the Access to Information Act

This Annual Report to Parliament on the Administration of the Access to Information Act (the Act) within the Department of Finance Canada (the 'Department') is prepared and tabled in Parliament in accordance with section 72 of the Act and covers the period from April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016.

The Actcame into force on July 1, 1983. Its purpose is to provide a right of access to information in records under the control of a government institution in accordance with the principles that such information should be available to the public, that necessary exceptions to the right of access should be limited and specific, and that decisions on the disclosure of government information should be reviewed independently of government. The Act is intended to complement existing procedures for access to government information; it is not intended to limit access to information that is normally available to the general public. Under the Act, Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or any person or corporation present in Canada have the right to request access to information contained in government records.

The Department recognizes that the right of access to information in records under its control and other federal government institutions is an essential element of our system of democracy. It is committed to openness and transparency, respecting both the spirit and the requirements of the Act, its regulations and related policy instruments. The Department further acknowledges the importance of facilitating access to records by requiring that its employees make every reasonable effort to assist applicants.

The Department of Finance Canada helps the Government of Canada develop and implement strong and sustainable economic, fiscal, tax, social, security, international and financial sector policies and programs. It plays an important central agency role, working with other departments to ensure that the government's agenda is carried out and that ministers are supported with high-quality analysis and advice.

The Department's responsibilities include:

• preparing the federal Budget and the Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections;
• preparing the Annual Financial Report of the Government of Canada and, in cooperation with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and the Receiver General for Canada, the Public Accounts of Canada;
• developing tax and tariff policy and legislation;
• managing federal borrowing on financial markets;
• designing and administering major transfers of federal funds to the provinces and territories;
• developing financial sector policy and legislation; and
• representing Canada in various international financial institutions and groups.

The Minister of Finance is accountable for ensuring that his responsibilities are fulfilled both within his portfolio and with respect to the authorities assigned through legislation. In particular, the Minister has direct responsibility for a number of acts as well as fiscal and tax policy relating to other acts that are under the responsibility of other ministers.

The Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Division was part of the Law Branch up to October 2015. After a reorganization, the ATIP Division became part of the Communications Policy Division, Consultations and Communications Branch. The ATIP Divison is responsible for administering the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act for the Department. As a centralized operation, the ATIP Division coordinates the timely processing of requests under the legislation, conducts interdepartmental consultations, handles complaints lodged with the Information Commissioner, and responds to informal inquiries. Division staff also provides guidance to departmental officials on matters involving the Act. The ATIP Division comprises a director, two team leaders, ten full-time ATIP analysts and two administrative assistants.

With the passing of the Federal Accountability Act, section 4(2.1) was added to the Act:

"The head of a government institution shall, without regard to the identity of a person making a request for access to a record under the control of the institution, make every reasonable effort to assist the person in connection with the request, respond to the request accurately and completely and, subject to the regulations, provide timely access to the record in the format requested."

The Department is committed to both the spirit and intent of these principles, and adheres to the Act and to the Directive on the Administration of the Access to Information Act with respect to their application when processing requests under the Act.

This year, the ATIP Division participated in two Orientation Sessions. These are provided to employees who are new to the Department as a means to introduce them to the activities of each Branch. It provided information about the ATIP Division, the Act, and information management practices to 45 new employees.

Two other training sessions were given to 13 departmental employees within various branches of the Department. The training was delivered using the Canada School of Public Service on-line ATIP training module to ensure that it is consistent with the whole of government approach. A total of 13 employees received this training. Training sessions were also conducted with branch ATIP contacts focusing on ATIP processes including those for the annual update of InfoSource. No branch specific training was requested this fiscal year. Ad hoc training on a variety of subjects was also provided as needed to individuals throughout the Department including to new ATIP branch contacts.

An internal audit of systems and processes for Access to Information (ATI) requests and security and information management was completed in 2015-2016. The audit concluded that the Department has effective and reliable information systems and activities for processing access to information requests. While the audit noted recent improvements in the review process, further opportunities exist to reduce the time required to retrieve requested information, and to streamline the process to review release packages. As a result,

The audit recommended to the Deputy Minister that:

1. All Branches adopt best practices related to information management, which will enable them to identify and retrieve information for ATI requests in the expected timeframes; and
2. That the review done by the Law Branch no longer takes place after the Consultations and Communications Branch review unless legal issues are involved.

In response to recommendation 1) guidance documents were developed to assist all departmental officials in responding to ATI requests. These included guidance documents on most commonly used exemptions, security of information and information management.

In response to recommendation 2) effective June 1, 2015, the Access to Information (ATI) approval process was reviewed and a new process was put into place. Assistant Deputy Ministers, their General Director(s) or Executive Director(s) have been delegated to approve the release of information for most ATI requests. In addition, to speed up the process, the transmission of the proposed package to be reviewed and approved is now being done electronically with an expected turn-around time of five business days should time permit.

On March 31, 2015, the Federal Court of Canada released its judgment and reasons in Information Commissioner v. Attorney General of Canada finding that the wording of subsection 7(2) of the Access to Information Regulations (“ATI Regulations”) does not allow government institutions to charge fees to search and prepare electronic records to respond to a request under the Access to Information Act (ATI Act). These electronic records include emails, Word documents, Excel documents, or documents stored within internal databases such as shared drives or any other electronic document and records management systems.

Effective March 31, 2015, institutions can no longer charge search or preparation fees for these types of electronic records in respect to requests made under the ATI Act. However, the ATI Regulations still allows fees to be charged for any paper records if the search and preparation would exceed five hours. In addition, production and programming fees can also be charged for computer generated reports. Departmental officials were made aware of this decision and officials of the ATIP Division continued to communicate with requesters to better focus broad requests to aid in providing timely and accurate responses. Branch officials were requested to inform officials of the ATIP Division when ATI Act requests could potentially involve a large volume of records.

To ensure policy compliance and adherence to procedures for appropriate handling and preparation of responses to ATIP requests, the ATIP Division continued to update tools used by staff both in the ATIP Division and across the Department and held face-to-face meetings with new staff and contacts. Both tools and meetings were instrumental in ensuring that the Department’s employees are aware of their roles and responsibilities related to access to information and privacy requests.

Due to a change in government, the delegation of authority was modified and approved on December 1, 2015. Depending on the nature of the information requested and its sensitivity, the authority to approve or deny the release of departmental information requested under the Act is shared by the Deputy Minister, the Associate Deputy Ministers, the Assistant Deputy Ministers, General Directors, Executive Directors, Senior Director of Communications Policy, the Access to Information and Privacy Director, ATIP Team Leaders and Senior ATIP Analysts to sign off on more administrative matters. Generally, the ATIP Director approves all exemptions.

Info Source is a series of publications containing information about and collected by the Government of Canada. The primary purpose of Info Source is to assist individuals in exercising their rights under the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. Info Source also supports the federal government's commitment to facilitate access to information regarding its activities.

A description of the Department’s functions, programs, activities and related information holdings can be found in Sources of Federal Government and Employee Information. Info Source also provides private individuals and federal government employees (current and former) with the information required to access their personal information held by government institutions that are subject to the Privacy Act.

During this reporting period, the ATIP Division reviewed the content of its Info Source chapters, including the descriptions of its information holdings, its institutional functions, programs and activities.

All Info Source publications are available free of charge on the Internet.

The number of formal requests received in this reporting period was 622, a 16.5% increase from 519 formal requests received the previous reporting year. The total number of requests considered was 740 as 118 requests remained outstanding from 2014-2015. By the end of 2015-2016, 560 requests were completed and 180 were carried forward to 2016-2017.

The Department’s on-time response rate to formal Access to Information Act requests was 92.5%, a slight increase over last year’s rate of 92.1%.

Table 1 illustrates a three-year trend.

In 2014-2015 the Department received 292 informal requests; this reporting year, the Department received 152 informal requests, a significant decrease of 92.1%. The vast majority of informal requests came from members of the media, followed by the business community and members of the public.

In 2014-2015, the Department received 169 consultations from other federal government institutions and organizations on matters of interest to the Department. This reporting year, the Department received 206. The total number of consultations considered was 210 as six remained outstanding from 2014-2015. By the end of 2015-2016, 201 consultations were completed and 11 were carried forward to 2016-2017.

Table 2 illustrates a five-year trend of the total number of received formal Access to Information Act requests, Privacy Act requests, informal requests, and consultations received from other government institutions and organizations.

The greatest change seen this reporting year in sources of requests were in the number of requests received from requestors choosing to decline to identify their category of requestor :

The following table indicates the disposition of the 560 requests completed during this reporting period:

The following is a comparison of the disposition of requests completed in 2015-2016 to the disposition of those completed in 2014-2015.

The changes in most of the categories were minimal—the largest change was in the number of requests in which records were all disclosed, disclosed in part, requests abandoned or where the ATIP Division confirmed to the requestor that no records exist.

Of the 560 requests completed this fiscal, 518 (92.5%) were closed on time, a slight increase over 2014-2015’s 92.1%. Many requests could not be responded to on time due to outstanding consultations both with branch officials and with other government institutions.

Of the 560 requests closed during the reporting period, 303 (54.1%) were completed within 30 days, 190 (34%) were completed within two to four months, 53 (9.4%) were completed within four to six months, and 19 (3.3%) took more than six months to complete.

Requests requiring more than six months to complete usually involved large numbers of documents that required extensive internal consultations, consultations with third parties and, often, consultations with other government institutions. Given the nature of the work done by the Department, consultations must be conducted with other federal government institutions on many of its requests and completion time is consequently impacted by the amount of time required of the other institutions to respond to those consultations.

In 2015-2016, the Department invoked a total of 1569 exemptions pursuant to specific sections of the Act. These exemptions were as follows:

The Access to Information Act does not apply to information that is already publicly available, such as government publications and material in libraries and museums. It also excludes material such as Cabinet confidences. Consistent with the Act, exclusions were invoked 346 times: 17 for information that could be found in the public domain or was available for purchase and 329 times under section 69 for confidences of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. Because the Department is responsible for preparing the Budget and develops legislation and associated policies, it has a large number of documents classified as Cabinet confidences.

Many of the requests processed by the Department in 2015-2016 involved complex issues raising the need to consult with several other government institutions and/or third parties. The number of pages in any given file can also be a factor in the length of time it takes to complete a file. This year saw a number of files which contained more than 500 pages, with the largest comprising 1589 pages.

Forty-two requests were closed past the statutory deadline for various reasons including workload and consultations, both external and internal. In 35 instances, extensions of the statutory time limit had been claimed but the files were nonetheless late, due mainly to consultations both external and internal. In the remaining seven instances, no extension of the statutory deadline was taken.
Of the late responses, 19 (45.2%) were responded to within 15 days past the deadline, eight (19%) within 16 to 30 days, seven (16.6%) within 31 to 60 days, six (14.2%) within 61 to 120 days, one (2.3%) within 121 to 180 days and one (2.3%) within 181 to 365 days.

No requests for translations were received.

During the reporting period, 285 extensions were taken for the following reasons:

Interference with government operations

54

Consultations required (section 69 and others)

193

Notification to third parties

38

In 56 cases, an extension of 30 days or less was required, 22 of which were invoked in order to consult with other federal government institutions, provincial government institutions and third parties; the remaining 34 were due to interference with government operations. Extensions of 31 to 120 days were required in 223 cases, 204 of which were taken for consultations under paragraphs 9(1)(b) and 9(1)(c). Extensions of more than 121 days were required in six cases and were mostly taken for consultations with other organizations.

As previously noted, effective March 31, 2015 departments can no longer collect fees to search and prepare electronic records to respond to a request under the ATI Act. The $5.00 application fee is normally charged and fees assessed at less than $25.00 are waived.

During this reporting year, $4,824.00 was collected in application and search fees. Application, search and reproduction fees in the amount of $1,003.00 were either waived or refunded in 11 cases.

The Department received a total of 206 consultations from other government institutions and organizations this reporting year, carried over six from the previous fiscal year, and closed 201. The on-time response rate to all consultations was 85.6%.

Of the 201 consultations from other government institutions and organizations which were closed this year, the Department responded to 164 (81.5%) in 30 days or less; 28 (13.9%) were responded to in 31 to 60 days, six (2.9%) required 61 to 120 days and three (1.5%) required 121 to 180 days to complete.

The Departmental Legal Services Unit responded to 127 consultations in order to confirm whether documents were Cabinet confidences. In all cases, responses were provided to the ATIP Division within 60 days.

No consultations on Cabinet confidences were forwarded to the Privy Council Office.

There were 16 complaints lodged against the Department during the reporting period:

• three complaints were classified as “refusal -general”;
• nine complaints concerned the exemption of information;
• one complaint concerned the exclusion of information under section 69 of the Act;
• two complaints concerned extensions taken or delay in responding; and
• one complaint was on refusal – no records existed.

Nine findings were rendered by the Office of the Information Commissioner this year:

• one complaint was concluded as “not well-founded”;
• five complaints were concluded as “well-founded, resolved without recommendation”;
• one complaint was settled in the course of the complaint; and
• two complaints were “discontinued” by the complainants.

None of the Information Commissioner’s investigations raised any specific issues or concerns with respect to the Department’s handling of these requests and no action was required of the Department.

As previously mentioned, an internal audit of systems and processes for Access to Information (ATI) requests and security and information management was completed in 2015-2016. The audit concluded that the Department has effective and reliable information systems and activities for processing access to information requests. While the audit noted recent improvements in the review process, further opportunities exist to reduce the time required to retrieve requested information, and to streamline the process to review release packages.

No appeals to the Federal Court were made in this reporting period.

Costs incurred in the reporting period are calculated on the salaries of ATIP staff and the administrative expenses associated with administration of the Act. Costs do not include salaries of other departmental personnel involved in processing requests. Administration of the Act cost the Department $1,118,499.00 this reporting year.

The ATIP Division produces weekly and monthly statistics on branch performance across the Department. Statistics are shared with branch heads, branch ATIP contacts, the Deputy Minister’s Office and the Minister’s Office.

Note: All requests previously recorded as "treated informally" will now be accounted for in this section only.