Dimitrijev and Department of Education
Dimitrijev and Department of Education
(1996 S0180, 23 February 1998)
The applicant raised a 'sufficiency of search' issue which the Information Commissioner dealt with according to the principles stated in Shepherd and Department of Housing, Local Government and Planning (1994) 1 QAR 464, in finding that there was no evidence to support the existence, in the possession or control of the Department, of a 'black list', or other document containing adverse information about the applicant, which prejudiced the applicant in obtaining contract teaching positions or permanent appointment with the Department.
A second issue concerned the application of s.30(1)(e) of the FOI Act, and whether the Department was obliged to create a new document for the purpose of attempting to satisfy the applicant's FOI access application (which was incorrectly, and unhelpfully, framed in the form of a series of questions).
The Information Commissioner found that the equipment usually available to the Department for retrieving or collating stored information was not capable of creating a written document containing the information requested by the applicant.
Dimitrijev and Department of Education
(S 180/96, 23 February 1998, Information Commissioner Albietz)
(This decision has been edited to remove merely procedural information and may have been edited to remove personal or otherwise sensitive information.)
1-4 These paragraphs deleted.
REASONS FOR DECISION
Background
5. By letter dated 26 August 1996, the applicant wrote to the Department of Education (the Department) requesting access to information, in the following terms.
… I am kindly asking you to provide me with the right information answering the following questions;
1. How many positions (permanent or contracts) have been offered for mathematics only to S2 rated teachers, and how many to S3 and S4 teachers since the end of the last school year? Please, state separately for Met-East, Met-West and South-Coast regions. For those that started at the beginning of the year, please give me the date of contract.
2. How many S2, S3 and S4 rated teachers (please state separately), appointed since the end of the last school year, ended up teaching mathematics, regardless of what the original school request was? Please, state separately for Met-East, Met-West and South-Coast regions.
3. How many teachers with mathematics/science combination have been appointed since the end of the last school year" How many of them are rated S2?
4. How many teachers with combinations of mathematics and any other subject have been appointed? How many of them are rated S2?
5. How many teachers who are not qualified to teach mathematics (eg. Science, German, arts teachers, etc.) have been appointed to teach mathematics?
6. How many teachers who are not qualified to teach senior mathematics (eg. Science and junior mathematics teachers) have been appointed in place of senior mathematics teacher?
7. Did any of the three Department Regions (Met-West, Met-West, and South Coast) intend to offer me a position, but could not contact me? If yes, how many and when were the telephone calls made?
8. Is there any specific information in my Department records (computer files) that could adversely affect my employment opportunities?
6. By letter dated 26 September 1996, Ms Narell Hall, Acting FOI Co-ordinator of the Department, wrote to the applicant advising of her decision. Ms Hall stated that a search of the records of Metropolitan East, Metropolitan West and South Coast regional offices had located 151 folios, contained in 6 files which fell within the terms of the applicant's FOI access application. Ms Hall decided to grant the applicant full access to those 151 folios, which included the applicant's personnel file and relevant EDPERS data base entries.
7. By letter dated 4 October 1996, the applicant applied for internal review of Ms Hall's decision, complaining that: "... the information provided is very limited, addressing only a small number of my questions and concerns." By letter dated 21 October 1996, Mr Patrick Parsons, Manager, Administrative Law and Legislative Operations of the Department, varied the decision under review by releasing two additional folios which were located following additional searches undertaken by the South Coast Regional Office of the Department. By letter dated 25 November 1996, the applicant applied to me for review, under Part 5 of the FOI Act, of Mr Parson's decision.
External review process
8. Two primary issues were raised in the application for review dated 25 November 1996, namely:
(1) the applicant's desire to have documents released which answer the specific questions set out in her FOI access application dated 26 August 1996; and
(2) a 'sufficiency of search' issue in relation to which the applicant contends that there is a document or documents in existence which effectively place her on a "black list", or contain adverse material which has had the effect of preventing her from obtaining a permanent appointment as a teacher with the Department.
9. In her application for review, the applicant stated:
I realise that my original request for documents is in the form of questions, which may not be the most appropriate style. Nonetheless, the questions clearly specify what kind of documents I request, while the accompanying text gives the background for the request. In particular I pray your attention to the fact that two Department regional offices (Met-East and South Coast) limited the documents they provided to permanent positions, refusing to give the documents to contract positions, while Met-West office provided a part of the documents on contract positions (positions given this year, while avoiding a number of whole year's contracts I know of, presumably given in 1995 after the end of the school term). Also, I have circumstantial evidence that I am "black listed" by the Department (probably because I dared to request the information, and because the limited part given to me clearly showed cases of irregular placement of teachers). Therefore, I pray your attention to question 8 of my original application, requesting the release of any documents which could show that I was singled out and treated not as somebody who seeks justice but a "trouble maker".
10. At a conference convened at my office on 5 February 1997, representatives of the Department again informed the applicant that the Department holds no further documents which specifically relate to the applicant.
11. By letter dated 25 February 1997, the applicant relied on the points made in her external review application stating that:
I am aware that the numerous examples of obvious unfair treatment by different Department officers, presented during the 5 February 1997 conference, could be due to:
(a) "black listing", or
(b) serious problems with the system of teacher placement, as implemented in everyday practice (therefore, not on a personal basis).
I have no clear evidence that would favour one or the other option.
12. By letter dated 10 March 1997, the Department was invited to lodge any submission or evidence (by way of affidavit or statutory declaration) upon which it wished to rely to support its case in this review, including but not limited to:
(a) the work that would be required in terms of examining files concerning appointments, both on a contractual and permanent basis for each of the regions concerned, of teachers whose duties include mathematics. The evidence should identify the staff time, expressed in terms of hours, for each of the regions to undertake the task; and
(b) whether any of the regions concerned, or the Department as a whole, have in their possession or control, any documents concerning the applicant, other than documents to which she has been given access. For example, does the Department have any document assessing the applicant's suitability for employment, which have not been released to her?
13. By further letter dated 10 March 1997, I invited the applicant to lodge any additional submission and/or evidence (by way of affidavit or statutory declaration) on which she wished to rely in support of her case.
14. By letter dated 25 March 1997, the applicant provided me with an additional submission and seven statutory declarations (six by herself, all dated 24 March 1997, and one by her husband, also dated 24 March 1997) in support of her case. For present purposes, it is sufficient to summarise the general nature of the points made in the supporting statutory declarations lodged by the applicant. Those statutory declarations relate to conversations the applicant and, on one occasion, her husband, had with employees of the Department. The applicant relies on those statutory declarations as affording evidence from which the inference should be drawn that a document, such as she contends exists, which effectively places her on a "black list", must be in the possession or control of the Department.
15. By letter dated 23 May 1997, the Department provided a written submission and evidence in support of its case. The evidence lodged on behalf of the Department, most of which responds to claims made in the statutory declarations lodged by the applicant, comprises the following:
· statutory declaration of Ms Lyndal Kaye Hill, Deputy Principal, Bundamba State High School, dated 16 May 1997;
· statutory declaration of Trevor Neil Luttrell, Senior Personnel Officer (Secondary) of the Department's Metropolitan East Regional Office, dated 19 May 1997;
· statutory declaration of Debby Hair, Secondary Staffing Officer - Contracts, of the Department's South Coast Regional Office, dated 19 May 1997;
· statutory declaration of Simone See Hong Fuller, Recruitment Officer, Personnel Services, of the Department's Metropolitan East Regional Office, dated 20 May 1997; and
· statutory declaration of Thomas David Robertson, dated 21 May 1997.
16. By letter dated 26 May 1997, the applicant was provided with a copy of the Department's material and invited to lodge any points of reply. By letter dated 10 June 1997, the applicant lodged her points of reply, accompanied by a further statutory declaration of the applicant dated 10 June 1997, and copies of a number of documents said to support the applicant's case. That material was provided to the Department which lodged short points of reply by letter dated 16 July 1997. When that letter was provided to the applicant, she elected to lodge a reply to it, by letter dated 31 July 1997.
Request for documents
17. The first of the issues raised by the applicant in her external review application is her request to obtain documents which answer the specific questions posed in her FOI access application.
18. In Re Hearl and Mulgrave Shire Council (1994) 1 QAR 557 (at pp.567-568, paragraphs 30-32), I stated:
30. The FOI Act is not an Act which gives persons a legally enforceable right to obtain answers to questions asked of government agencies, or even to have government agencies extract answers to questions from documents in their possession. The legally enforceable right conferred by s.21 of the FOI Act is a right to be given access under the Act, and subject to the Act, to documents of an agency and official documents of a Minister. The term "document of an agency" is defined in s.7 of the FOI Act as follows:
...
The term "official document of a Minister" is also defined in s.7 as follows:
...
Section 25(1) of the FOI Act makes it clear that a person applies to an agency or Minister for access to a document of the agency or an official document of the Minister. Section 25(2) makes it clear that the application for access must provide such information concerning the document as is reasonably necessary to enable a responsible officer of the agency or the Minister to identify the document.
31. ... in the context of a formal determination under Part 5 of the FOI Act, I am obliged to strictly apply the provisions of the FOI Act, and they confer no legal right to obtain answers to questions, as opposed to obtaining access to existing documents.
32. ... Arguably, the terms of the other parts of Mr Hearl's initial FOI access request could be, and should be, interpreted so as to give them efficacy in terms of the FOI Act, i.e., by reading them as a request for any information in documentary form which would provide the details specified in the various parts of the FOI access request. This would ordinarily, in my opinion, be the most appropriate approach to interpretation of an FOI access request framed as a series of questions; ...
19. The Department appears to have adopted the benevolent approach referred to at the end of the passage just quoted, when dealing with the applicant's FOI access application, which was framed as a series of questions. I consider that it was equally open to the Department to refuse to deal with the applicant's FOI access application until it was reframed as an application for access to identifiable documents, which application complied with the requirements of s.25(2)(b) of the FOI Act. I do not wish to be critical of the Department for adopting a benevolent approach at the initial stage (since this did result in the applicant obtaining access to some 150 documents), but since the applicant began to complain that she had not received all the information she requested, the difficulty of trying to deal with that issue by reference to an improperly-framed FOI access application has become apparent. The terms of an FOI access application set the parameters of an agency's search for documents and when an access application is not framed so as to request identifiable documents, the process of dealing with a 'sufficiency of search' issue is difficult to manage without properly precise criteria. Many of the problems encountered in dealing with this application for external review can be traced back to the improperly-framed FOI access application.
20. The applicant declined an offer made at the conference of 5 February 1997 to negotiate with the Department and my staff with a view to reframing the terms of her FOI access application. Instead, the applicant insisted that the Department had the information she wanted and could generate documents to provide it.
21. The ordinary and natural meaning of the words used by the legislature in s.21 and s.25 of the FOI Act makes clear that the right of access conferred by the FOI Act is not a right of access to information per se, but a right of access to information contained in the form of documents which exist in the possession or control of a particular agency or Minister, at the time that a valid access application under s.25 of the FOI Act is lodged with that agency or Minister. The natural corollary to this is that an agency or Minister is not obliged by the terms of the FOI Act to create a new document in order to provide information requested by an access applicant - an agency or Minister is only obliged to locate existing documents in its possession or control, which fall within the terms of a valid access application under s.25 of the FOI Act (and to make the decisions, in respect of any documents thus located, that are required under the provisions of the FOI Act).
22. There is only one exception to that general statement of principle to be found in the FOI Act. It is the one provided for in s.30(1)(e) of the FOI Act, which is, in turn, subject to a significant qualification. Section 30(1)(e) of the FOI Act provides:
30.(1) Access to a document may be given to a person in one or more of the following forms -
...
(e) if—
(i) the application relates to information that is not contained in a written document held by the agency; and
(ii) the agency could create a written document containing the information using equipment that is usually available to it for retrieving or collating stored information;
providing a written document so created.
23. Section 30(1)(e)(i) and s.30(1)(e)(ii) set out the two pre-conditions which, if satisfied, will oblige an agency, at the request of an access applicant, to create a document in order to provide information specified in an FOI access application. Firstly, s.30(1)(e) only applies when the access application relates to information that is not contained in a written document held by the agency. The most obvious example of this is the storage of raw information on a computerised database.
24. Secondly, s.30(1)(e)(ii) requires an examination, in the particular circumstances of a given case, of a factual issue as to whether the relevant agency could create a written document, containing the information requested in the FOI access application, using equipment that is usually available to it for retrieving or collating stored information. The term "usually available" imposes a significant qualification on the entitlement of an FOI access applicant to seek specific information from a computer database or other repository of stored information. It means, in effect, that it must be possible to retrieve or collate the information requested by an FOI access applicant using equipment (including computer programs or software) already in place, or otherwise usually available, to undertake the performance of the agency's functions. In other words, s.30(1)(e) imposes no requirement on an agency to obtain additional equipment or re-program existing equipment, or (for example) write a specific program to enable a database to be interrogated, in order to respond to an FOI access application.
25. In summary terms, the Department's case in this review is that no documents exist which contain the information sought in the applicant's FOI access application, and although the Department's computerised databases could be interrogated to provide some (but not all) of the information sought by the applicant, this would require a special program to be devised at significant cost (which the Department is not prepared to bear), and the Department is not obliged under s.30(1)(e) to create a written document containing information for the applicant, because that cannot be done using the equipment that is usually available to the Department.
26. I readily accept that no documents would have existed at the time of lodgement of the applicant's FOI access application, or would now exist, containing information that would answer questions 1 to 7 set out in the applicant's FOI access application. (I will consider question 8 separately below). Information of the kind requested reflects personal concerns of the applicant, and there is no reasonable basis for expecting that the Department would have created documents containing such information for its own administrative purposes. In answer to the first question set out in paragraph 19 of Re Shepherd (reproduced at paragraph 33 below), I am satisfied that there are no reasonable grounds for believing that any documents containing information which answers any of questions 1 to 7 (inclusive) in the applicant's FOI access application dated 26 August 1996 exist in the possession or control of the Department.
27. In respect of the s.30(1)(e) issue, the Department's primary submission was set out in its letter dated 23 May 1997 as follows:
Information concerning appointments, both contractual and permanent, to maths positions or maths combinations positions in the three regions from December 1995, including appointed teachers' ratings and qualifications and school name is not information collated by Education Queensland for its purposes and no documents exist which provide this information. The personnel database, EDPERS, can be interrogated to extract the information by use of a specifically written program developed by staff of the Human Resources Directorate and the Information Management and Planning Directorate. The following process would apply:
· An officer of the Personnel and Support Services Unit (PSSU) in the Human Resources Directorate would prepare a Request for Information (RFI) setting out a detailed description of the information required, plus calculation formula and parameters.
· The RFI would be lodged with the Applications Unit (AU) in the Information Management and Planning Directorate. The PSSU officer would discuss and liaise with the relevant officer in the AU until completion of the project.
· In the AU the project would be registered for tracking
· The project would be allocated to a programmer to write and test a program for retrieval of the data. This process would take 20-30 hours.
· The program would be reviewed by another programmer
· The program would be run and raw date returned to PSSU
· Raw data would be grouped and compiled into the required format, e.g. by teacher type, rating etc. This process would take approximately 8 hours.
The documents produced by this process may not provide information which would be reliable for the applicant’s purposes. In relation to teachers' ratings, the information stored on EDPERS at the time of extraction may not show the ratings of teachers at the time of their appointments if their ratings have changed since. EDPERS is an override database with later information cancelling and replacing earlier information. This would apply particularly to contract teachers who may seek to upgrade their suitability, for example, in terms of subjects, mobility or rating. There are also some instances in the relevant timespan where teachers have been appointed to permanent teaching positions, have resigned and subsequently sought reappointment and reinterview and improved their ratings.
Information on subject mix requested by schools when asking the region to provide a teacher cannot be provided as the information is not retained once an appointment is made. Mr Trevor Luttrell, Senior Personnel Officer in Metropolitan East Region, has sworn a statutory declaration (attached) setting out the selection process used in that region including the disposal of information. I have confirmed with both South Coast Region and Metropolitan West Region that the same process is used in those regions.
Information on teachers appointed to teach other subjects who may now be teaching maths subjects is not information collated by Education Queensland for its purposes. Each year in February the department conducts a census of duties which shows the names of all secondary teachers and which subjects they are teaching at that time. It is possible to isolate from the census data the names of teachers teaching maths or maths combinations (approximately 11,500 teachers) and interface it with EDPERS to match the names of teachers with their qualifications.
It should be noted however, this data will not necessarily satisfy the appliacnt’s requirements as it will capture the situation only during a specific period in February and may include teachers who are not maths teachers and who do not normally teach maths, but who were taking maths classes at that time because of staff absences or other school based circumstances. This census data for 1997 is still being verified and entered by the Data Management Unit and is not available.
The process of matching census data with EDPERS data would involve:
· Code matching for each entry as the codes used in the census may not match the codes used on EDPERS. The two sets of data are collected for different purposes by different areas of the department using different systems and matching may be difficult.
· the 11,500 (approx) maths and maths combinations teachers would have to be separated from the body of the census data.
· An RFI would have to be written for the Applications Unit to write a program to match the data, manually extracted from the census, with data on EDPERS. For the balance of the process please refer to process of writing program and grouping and compiling raw data as described earlier.
Information on whether teachers not qualified to teach maths had been appointed when a maths qualified teacher was available cannot be provided. Because EDPERS is an override database the details for teachers who have been applicants over the past two years may have changed. While we can, as described above, create a document to show information on actual appointments of maths teachers we cannot, at this stage, know the details of teachers who were available at any given point from the end of 1995 until now.
28. The following segments of the statutory declaration of Mr Trevor Luttrell, Senior Personnel Officer with the Department's Metropolitan East Region, are also relevant to the s.30(1)(e) issue:
...
b) Regional staffing officers interrogate the EDPERS system using the EQAT (Applicant tracking) screen. This report provides a list of applicants who match the requirements as stated by the school. The report indicates the address of the applicant and the S rating.
As each requirement for employment from each school is usually different, and as the number of available applicants is constantly changing due to new applicants being processed each day, staffing officers usually reprint a new report for each employment requirement. When the employment requirement is satisfied this report is thrown out as it is usually outdated within a week (because of the constant updating of new applications). A staffing officer might proceed with an average of 5 - 10 EQAT reports each day of the working year.
...
4. All available information which can be accessed by regional staffing officers in Metropolitan East Region has already been supplied to the applicant. Any additional interrogation of the EDPERS system is beyond the abilities of any of the regional officers as it is my understanding that it requires specialist computer programmers to write specialist programmes to interrogate the system. This is arranged via a "Request for Information" to Central Office - Personnel and Support Services Branch. Specific details would be required for this request.
29. In her letter dated 10 June 1997, the applicant disputed the Department's submissions and evidence, asserting that documents containing information that would assist her could be routinely retrieved by the Department with no need for specifically-written programs. In a reply dated 16 July 1997, Mr Parsons of the Department explained why the applicant's assertions were mistaken, having regard to the capabilities of the standard retrieval functions for the EDPERS database. In her letter dated 31 July 1997, the applicant again disputed the Department's position on this issue.
30. It warrants note that, by this stage of the review, the applicant was asserting (see points 2.1 and 2.2 of her letter dated 21 July 1997, and points 1.2 and 1.3 of her letter dated 10 June 1997) that the Department should extract certain kinds of lists of information from its databases, to be, in effect, cross-matched and manipulated, in order to create new documents to provide the applicant with the information she seeks. This travels well beyond the obligations imposed on an agency by the FOI Act (see paragraph 21 above).
31. In any event, I am satisfied on the material before me, that the applicant is mistaken in her understanding of the search and retrieval capabilities usually available to the Department for extracting information from the EDPERS database. I am satisfied that the equipment usually available to the Department for retrieving or collating stored information could not create a written document containing the information requested in any of questions 1-7 set out in the applicant's FOI access application dated 26 August 1996. It appears that some (but not all) of the information requested by the applicant could be retrieved in a written document, by the use of a specially-prepared written program and interfacing a database with other sources of data, but I am satisfied that the Department is not required under the provisions of the FOI Act generally, or the terms of s.30(1)(e) in particular, to undertake such an exercise for the purpose of attempting to satisfy the applicant's FOI access application.
'Sufficiency of search' issue in respect of question 8 in the applicant's FOI access application
32. Question 8 of the applicant's FOI access application asked: "Is there any specific information in my Department records (computer files) that could adversely affect my employment opportunities". In response, the Department disclosed all records which it held on the applicant. The applicant contends that the Department has not disclosed all relevant documents, because she has reason to believe that she is "black-listed", or there is other information adverse to her, which is preventing her from obtaining an appointment to a permanent teaching position with the Department, and no information of that kind has been disclosed to her.
33. The principles applicable to 'sufficiency of search' cases were stated in my reasons for decision in Re Shepherd and Department of Housing, Local Government & Planning (1994) 1 QAR 464 at pp.467-468 (paragraphs 18-19):
18. It is my view that in an external review application involving 'sufficiency of search' issues, the basic issue for determination is whether the respondent agency has discharged the obligation, which is implicit in the FOI Act, to locate and deal with (in accordance with Part 3, Division 1 of the FOI Act) all documents of the agency (as that term is defined in s. 7 of the FOI Act) to which access has been requested. It is provided in s. 7 of the FOI Act that:
'document of an agency' or 'document of the agency' means a document in the possession or under the control of an agency, or the agency concerned, whether created or received in the agency, and includes -
(a) a document to which the agency is entitled to access; and
(b) a document in the possession or under the control of an officer of the agency in the officer's official capacity;"
19. In dealing with the basic issue referred to in paragraph 18, there are two questions which I must answer:
(a) whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that the requested documents exist and are documents of the agency (as that term is defined in s. 7 of the FOI Act);
and if so,
(b) whether the search efforts made by the agency to locate such documents have been reasonable in all the circumstances of a particular case.
34. The applicant's submission dated 25 March 1997 in relation to this issue stated:
I believe the events described in the statutory declarations prove that I am treated as a specific case by the Department of Education, quite obviously the treatment is negative and against the proclaimed rules. Theoretically, it is possible that the written document related to my case cannot be found. This would be the case if: (i) any written document that may have existed has been destroyed, (ii) the information that the persons mentioned in the statutory declarations (placement officers, the Deputy Principal, etc.) had about my specific case was conveyed in an oral form, without a written record. In any case, it is quite clear that the placement officers had a specific information about me, and obviously they can tell in what form was that information given to them.
In addition to the events described in the statutory declarations, the very fact that positions are given to lower rated and/or less qualified teachers at the time when I am asking for explanations and making quite clear that I am not only available but eager to get a position, proves that positions (permanent or contract) are deliberately not given to me. In that sense, the resolution of the first issue of this external review, which is the access to documents on permanent and contract positions given, can provide clear evidence that I am black listed. I pray again your attention to the fact that I already know of some lower rated teachers employed ahead of me refer to statutory declarations enclosed and the limited information on contracts provided by Met-West after the original FOI application.
35. Most of the statutory declarations lodged by the applicant contain evidence of the grounds on which she believes she is subject to a form of "black-listing", by which she has been treated adversely compared to less qualified teachers in her specialty. The statutory declarations lodged by the applicant offer no positive evidence of the existence of such a "black list", or document containing adverse information about her, and the FOI Act can only assist her if such a document actually exists in the possession or control of the Department. The Department has stated unambiguously that no such document exists, and that the applicant's assertions in this regard are mistaken.
36. The applicant's belief that there must be a "black list", or document containing adverse information about her, rests on inferences she (or, in one instance, her husband) has drawn from various conversations with employees of the Department, and what she interprets as adverse treatment of herself compared to less qualified teachers who are available for contract employment or permanent appointment. The Department has lodged evidence to explain that some of the specific conversations referred to in the applicant's statutory declarations were misunderstood or misinterpreted by the applicant. Even the instance of less qualified teachers in the applicant's speciality obtaining better contract positions is explicable, having regard to the rather haphazard process (in which Departmental officers appear to treat time as being of the essence) by which those engagements are arranged, according to the evidence in paragraphs 3 and 4 of Mr Luttrell's statutory declaration. Mr Luttrell has also clearly stated on oath (in paragraphs 5 and 6 of his statutory declaration) that there is no "black list", and there is no impediment to the applicant being offered employment, provided her capabilities and preferences match the schools' requirements, and she is available for the employment. In addition, Ms Debby Hair has stated on oath (in paragraph 2 of her statutory declaration) that no blacklists exist in the South Coast Education Region, nor does that region hold any information, nor is their anything on the applicant's file, which has been used to deny her employment (apart from any documents already disclosed to the applicant). I also note the admission made in the applicant's submission dated 25 February 1997 to the effect that she had no clear evidence which would support a hypothesis of a "black list" being in existence, or whether general problems with the system of teacher placement were at work.
37. With respect to the first question posed in paragraph 19 of Re Shepherd, having regard to all the material placed before me by the participants, I am not satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that there are reasonable grounds for believing that there exists in the possession or control of the Department a document akin to a "black list", or other document containing adverse information about the applicant, which has caused the applicant to suffer adverse treatment in obtaining contract teaching positions, or permanent appointment with the Department.
38. With respect to the second question posed in paragraph 19 of Re Shepherd, having regard to the Department's evidence and submissions, I am satisfied that the Department has undertaken extensive searches in each of the three relevant regions to locate documents which refer to the applicant. During the internal review process, additional searches were undertaken in each of the relevant regions (Metropolitan East, Metropolitan West and South Coast) with the result that two further documents were located and supplied to the applicant. Prior to the conference conducted on 5 February 1997 during the external review process, the Department conducted further searches which failed to locate any further relevant documents.
39. I am satisfied that the searches and inquiries undertaken by the Department to locate all documents in its possession or control, relevant to question 8 in the applicant's FOI access application dated 26 August 1996, have been reasonable in all the circumstances of the case.
Conclusion
40. For the foregoing reasons, I affirm the decision under review (being the decision dated 21 October 1996 made on behalf of the Department by Mr Parsons).
41. This finalises application for review S 180/96. I will forward a copy of this letter to the Department for its reference.
Yours faithfully
F N ALBIETZ
INFORMATION COMMISSIONER
