Compliance audit report - Ipswich City Council
This report presents the results of our audit about Ipswich City Council’s compliance with the Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld) and the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld) tabled in Parliament on 17 May 2018.
Ipswich City Council has embarked on a major program of change following a review it commissioned in July 2017. The council has started to transform its governance arrangements, corporate planning and reporting, and information and communications technology function. It took the initiative to implement some of our suggested improvements during the audit. The council has the opportunity to embed consistent, efficient and compliant right to information and information privacy practices as it progresses in its change program.
We found that, although Ipswich City Council clearly states it is committed to right to information and information privacy, there is more it can do to proactively release information and fully realise the aims of the Acts.
Key findings are that Ipswich City Council:
- has put its commitment to right to information and information privacy into practice in some areas
- has various elements of information governance but does not bring these together in an information governance framework
- can do more to proactively release information, for example, promoting its administrative access arrangements ahead of legislative applications
- handled audited applications in accordance with the legislation, and with a focus on speed and good client service
- has trained its staff in information privacy, but not sufficiently in right to information or the application of right to information and information privacy to their work environment
- has a good privacy resource in its Ipswich City Council Personal Information Digest
- protects personal information in its Safe City camera surveillance system, but does not have mature policies, procedures and strategies for its two other camera surveillance systems.
We made 12 recommendations. The council supports our recommendations and intends to implement them. We will monitor the council’s progress.