Administrative access to documents held in public schools: How the Department of Education implemented our recommendations: Follow-up audit on Report No. 2 for 2021-22
Since 2009, Queensland’s Parliament and Government have promoted proactive release of government held information under the Right to Information and Information Privacy Acts 2009 (the Acts), recognising that such information is a public resource.
The Acts emphasise proactive release of information to members of the community through various means, including making information available administratively. In 2021-22, we assessed how the Department of Education (Department) operated an administrative access arrangement for requesting documents held in schools. We tabled a Report in Parliament which made six recommendations on how the Department can improve its arrangements to administratively release information held by schools. The Department accepted all recommendations and agreed to implement them by May 2024.
In 2024-25, we commenced a follow-up audit to assess what progress the Department has made in implementing the six recommendations of our 2021-22 audit.
This follow-up report presents the Information Commissioner’s findings.
While the Commissioner found the Department has made progress in implementing the recommendations, there is more work for the Department to do to implement all recommendations from the original audit. Three years after the last audit, the Department is still finalising its new administrative release procedure and guideline which directly impacts on the implementation of the other recommendations for how schools go about making information available in a consistent and easy manner.
Accordingly, the Commissioner found the Department’s actions to date are insufficient to improve administrative access to documents held in schools for students, parents and staff, and the broader community.
