Applications for public service recruitment documents

The Right to Information Act 2009¹ (Qld) (RTI Act) allows anyone to apply for documents held by a Queensland government agency.² This includes documents received or created as part of a workplace recruitment process. This guideline explains the issues and public interest factors which generally arise in relation to access applications for public service recruitment documents.

Information about unsuccessful candidates

Information about unsuccessful candidates, including their identities, will generally be contrary to the public interest to release. This includes information that would identify them.

The fact that someone has applied for a job, including a public service job, is their personal information. It raises the privacy⁵ and personal information⁶ public interest factors against disclosure (the privacy factors).

If they are not successful, ie they are not appointed to the public service role, their privacy interests are not diminished against an applicant.⁷This does not apply to an unsuccessful candidate applying for their own information.Unsuccessful candidates will generally be given access to information about themselves.⁸

Information about successful candidates

In contrast to unsuccessful candidates, the privacy interests of the successful candidates will generally be reduced when they are appointed to a public service position.

Factors favouring disclosure

The public interest factors favouring disclosure that generally arise when considering information relating to successful candidates include:

• disclosure could reasonably be expected to reveal the reason for the selection panel’s decision and any background or contextual information that informed the decision⁹
• disclosure could reasonably be expected to contribute to the transparency and accountability of the agency’s recruitment and appointment process;¹⁰ and
• disclosure could reasonably be expected to ensure effective oversight of expenditure of public funds¹¹.

These will generally attract a strong weighting, however the particular circumstances of each access application must be taken into account. For example, in Poyton and Metro North Hospital and Health Service¹² the Commissioner assigned a low weighting to these factors, due to the low level of the position, the fact that it was a temporary (six month) position, and the appointee occupied it for only six weeks, after which they left the employ of the agency.

Factors favouring non-disclosure

The factors favouring nondisclosure which usually arise are that information is the successful candidate’s personal information and that disclosure could reasonably be expected to prejudice their right to privacy.

Once the successful candidate's purely private information is removed, there is generally a low weight attributed to the privacy factors for the remaining personal information, including, for example, work history details and selection criteria responses.¹⁴

In assessing the weight to accord to these factors favouring nondisclosure, it may be relevant to consider any policies of the agency concerning disclosure of such information.  For example, were job candidates informed that the agency has a policy of disclosing certain details about the recruitment process as a matter of standard procedure?

In relation to whether releasing the successful candidate’s information could reasonably be expected to prejudice the future supply of confidential information,¹⁵ the Commissioner has rejected this factor, given that someone who is genuinely interested in a position would not be deterred from applying simply because their application may be open to scrutiny in the event they were appointed to the position.¹⁶

The Commissioner also found¹⁷ that disclosing the information could not reasonably be expected to prejudice an agency’s management function or its conduct of industrial relations.