The British Columbia government is doing a bangup job of providing the public information – just not necessarily the information the public wants, when it wants it.
That’s the assessment of the B.C. Freedom of Information of Privacy Association (FIPA), following a report by B.C. Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham that finds the B.C. government’s response times to freedom of information requests is getting worse.
Government bodies are supposed to respond to an FOI request within 30 business days. But the average response has rose to 44 business days.
"This is my office's fourth report examining government's performance responding to access requests within the 30-business-day time limit set out in the legislation,” Denham said.
“In our last timeliness report card, government's performance had improved to an average of 93% on time; over the past two years their performance has fallen to 74% on time. Government's disappointing decline in timely responses to access to information requests frustrates individual applicants and erodes the public's right to know.”
Denham’s report came out September 23, just one day after Technology, Innovation and Citizens' Services Andrew Wilkinson issued a press release for Right To Know Week that claimed B.C. is “recognized as a leader in providing open data to the public.”
FIPA executive director Vincent Gogolek said it may be true that B.C. is making more information available online, but when it comes to accessing information through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the B.C. government has gone backwards.
“This is one of the things that governments do,” Gogolek said. “They like things like releasing information that they think people would like to have and things that they are happy to give us. They get a lot more sticky when people decide to exercise their quasi-constitutional right to information.”
Denham also underlines concerns about response to FOI requests in which the government claims the documents do not exist. Although there has been a slight improvement, one in five FOI requests are met with the response that the requested documents do not exist, underscoring concerns about the way in which government is managing information.
"While the percentage of no responsive records responses has improved from 25% to 19%, I remain concerned about government's records management practices and the deletion of emails that it considers transitory in nature,” Denham said. “To address this issue, I recommend that government implement an email management system with respect to senior government officials to ensure these documents are preserved and archived.
Gogolek said his organization is also concerned about FOI requests that are initially rejected without a legitimate excuse, and cites the City of Vancouver as a glaring example.
In three recent cases, Gogolek said Denham’s office has ruled against the city’s rejection of FOI requests
“There were three orders in the last three weeks or so, and they lost all of them, spectacularly,” Gogolek said. “Basically they didn’t introduce any evidence.”
@nbennett_biv
