Annual Report: 2003-2004

In the reporting year (2003-2004), 1,338 complaints were made to the commissioner against government institutions and 970 investigations were completed (see Table 1). Table 1B indicates 14.5 percent of all complaints received concerned delay. Last year, by comparison, 20.6 percent of complaints concerned delay. This drop in the number of delay complaints is indicative of a generally improving performance by government in meeting response deadlines. In addition to the complaints received this year, the office responded to over 3,000 inquiries.

Table 2 shows the outcome of the 970 completed investigations. Of the cases which were not discontinued (withdrawn) or dismissed, over 99 percent were resolved without resort to the courts. The eight complaints which could not be resolved concerned only three issues: solicitor-client privilege, 1911 census records, and legal fees. The resulting litigation is described in Chapter V.

As seen from Table 3, the median overall turnaround time for complaint investigations increased to 5.57 months from 5.42 months last year. Table 3A illustrates the effect on completion time of the increasing percentage of workload in the more complex, difficult complaint categories. However, even this breakdown illustrates the deterioration in turnaround times for both standard and difficult cases.

Table 1 reminds us that there continues to be a troubling number of incomplete investigations. Last year it was 657, this year it is 1,025. Of this number, 728 have been under investigation for a period which indicates that they are backlogged as compared with 365 last year. The modest progress reported last year in both improving turnaround times and reducing backlog was not possible to sustain in the face of severe resource constraints. As discussed at pages 76 to 77, the ability of the commissioner’s office to deliver timely, thorough investigations and to be an effective watchdog over the access system is now in real jeopardy. This office accepts the need for public institutions to be lean and prudent with public funds, yet, the current financial anorexia it is experiencing is depriving members of the public of an important democratic right.

Table 4 shows the distribution of completed complaints across 56 government institutions. Some 62 percent of all complaints were made against only ten government institutions. This phenomenon corresponds with the access requests received by government as a whole: a few institutions account for the bulk of all requests.

Of the complaints closed this fiscal year, the top ten "complained against" institutions are: