Annual Report: 2003-2004

Status report on access requests in a deemed-refusal situation

l. BACKGROUND

For several years, a number of institutions were subject to review because of evidence of chronic difficult in meeting response deadlines. In his 1996-97 Annual Report to Parliament, the former information commissioner reported that delays in responding to access requests had reached crisis proportions.

As a result, the Information Commissioner has adopted the following standard as being the best measure of a department’s compliance with response deadlines: percentage of requests received which end as deemed refusals. Every department reviewed has been assessed against the following grading standard:

Initially, six institutions were the focus of this review, with six having since been added, including Transport Canada (TC). This then is a report of the review of Transport Canada’s performance for the period April 1 to November 30, 2003, and the institution’s progress to attaining substantial compliance with the time requirements of the Access to Information Act since the previous report. In addition, this report contains information on the status of the recommendations made in the Status Report of January 2003.

2. COMPLIANCE HISTORY

In early 2000, the Office of the Information Commissioner issued a Report Card on Transport Canada’s compliance with the statutory time requirements of the Access to Information Act. In the Report Card, the department received a red alert grade of "F" for its compliance with the statutory time requirements of the Act. The grade represented a 30.6% new request to deemed-refusal ratio for access requests received from April 1 to November 30, 1999.

In January 2001, the report reviewed the department’s progress during 2000 in meeting the time requirements of the Act. Between April 1 and November 30, 2000, the new request to deemed-refusal ratio improved to 23.7%, still grade "F".

In January 2002, a further Status Report reviewed the progress of the department to come into substantial or ideal compliance with the time requirements of the Access to Information Act since the January 2001 Status Report. To the department’s credit at the time, TC achieved a grade of "C" for the period April 1 to November 30, 2001. Subsequently, the grade dropped to a "D" for the fiscal year 2001-2002.

In the last review, January 2003, it was reported that TC had received a grade of "D", denoting below standard compliance with the time requirements of the Access to Information Act. This level of compliance slipped even further with the final statistics indicating a 29.9% of deemed refusals in relation to requests received for the fiscal year 2002-2003.

3. CURRENT STATUS

The department continues to experience problems in attaining even a level of substantial compliance in the deemed-refusal situation. The new request to deemed-refusal grading remained at a "D" level, although the ratio did improve marginally to 17.2% for the period from April 1 to November 30, 2003.

Although this gives an accurate assessment of the deemed-refusal ratio to requests received within the above-noted reporting period, it does not take into consideration those requests carried over from the previous year, nor the number of requests already in a deemed-refusal status on April 1. In future reports, these figures will be taken into consideration; however, for this report, the grading resulting from that inclusion is provided for information purposes only. In this instance, the results for April 1 to November 30, 2003, would be 24.4%, resulting in a grade of "F".

The structure of the department, or more appropriately of former components of the department, still comes into play in dealing with some requests. At the time that NAVCAN was created, a number of agreements were in place with regards to records control. While there was an understanding in place, when it came to gaining access to certain past departmental records, the transition has been less than smooth.

A heavy concentration of requests from a single requestor on complex single-focused issues has tied up a considerable amount of the ATIP Directorate’s limited resources in consultation and administrative work exceeding the actual ATIP-related function.

In an attempt to address some of the recommendations made in previous reviews, TC contracted a consultant to review the department’s processes and make recommendations for improving performance. To date, all of the recommendations have been acted upon, except for the improvement in the human resources area. While the study recommended a staff of 16, the actual staffing is at 1999-2000 levels, during which time the unit also received an "F" rating.

Notwithstanding the results reported above, the ATIP office has endeavored to improve its record through a number of training-related initiatives:

• Ongoing training workshops and awareness sessions to departmental employees
• Inclusion of an ATIP module in the departmental employee orientation session with participation from the ATIP division
• Two-day training course delivered during the year to managers and OPIs in all regions and to the Safety and Security Group at National Headquarters
  
• Ongoing participation by the ATIP advisors in training sessions and seminars organized by other government departments and private organizations.
  

4. OBJECTIVES FOR 2004-2005 AND FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

In addition to the training, which has already taken place, more is planned for the coming year with sessions scheduled for January and February. In regards to the recommendations of the previously mentioned consultant’s study, a review of the procedures was conducted with a view to improving responses, with emphasis being placed on the major outstanding issues. With that in mind, a number of recommendations are made.

In May 2003, TC developed an ATI Improvement Plan based on an analysis of deemed-refusal access requests. As this plan included a recommendation to change the delegation of authority, the new procedures were scheduled for implementation in April 1, 2004.

4.1 Delegation of Authority

For this reporting period, the ATIP Coordinator had still not been delegated any decision-making authority under the Access to Information Act, with the exception of certain administrative decisions and decisions under sections 7 and 19. As was stated last year, experience shows that delegation of decision-making to the individual with the knowledge to make decisions under the Act reduces the time taken to respond to requests. Other departments have delegated routine administrative decisions to officers reporting to the Coordinator.

4.2 Approval Process

The department’s process for approving a response to an access request continues to be cumbersome and in need of review. In last year’s review, comments were made regarding the time taken by the various regions and divisions to retrieve records as well as follow-up review time. There has been some improvement in response times contributing to the marginal overall improvement.

Table 1 illustrates if a request to retrieve records was completed on time by the Region/Branch that the request was sent to and if the internal consultation (concurrence) was achieved on time. Table 1 also provides information on how other departmental participants in the access process fared in meeting their allocated time requirements.

4.3 Human Resources

Throughout the year, numerous events have resulted in the staffing level of the ATIP division being reduced to 1998 levels. As previously mentioned, a consultant conducted a study of the division and its processes. One of the recommendations not implemented as of yet is that additional positions be created and staffed to meet the workload requirements.

5. STATUS OF 2003 RECOMMENDATIONS

In January 2003, recommendations were made to Transport Canada on measures to reduce the number of access requests in a deemed-refusal situation. The action taken on each recommendation is described below, following the text of the recommendation.

Action taken: The ATIP Coordinator has not been delegated any decision-making authority under the Access to Information Act, with the exception of certain administrative decisions and decisions under sections 7 and 19. However, at the time of writing this report, the new delegation order had been approved.

Action taken: A study was conducted to process map and review the access process to eliminate duplication of effort or determine steps in the process that can be handled in parallel rather than sequentially. In May 2003, TC developed an ATI Improvement Plan based on an analysis of deemed-refusal access requests. As this plan included a recommendation to change the delegation of authority, the new procedures were scheduled for implementation in April 1, 2004.

Action taken: The Communications function continues to be part of the access process as a sequential step. However, at the time of writing this report, in order to improve the communications aspect of the process, TC had implemented weekly meeting between the ATIP unit and senior officials, including representatives from the Communications Branch.

Action taken: The ATIP Coordinator reported that TC contracted a firm to review the delegation of authority, identify and make recommendations on resource issues and ATIP processes. At the time of writing this report, all the proposals put forward in the review were approved for implementation where additional resources were not required. The new process will be implemented April 1, 2004.

EXCERPT FROM DEPUTY MINISTER’S RESPONSE TO STATUS REPORT

"As indicated in your report, during the reporting period, TC developed an ATI Improvement Plan which included a recommendation to change the delegation of authority. I am pleased to report that this plan was implemented, as scheduled, on April 1, 2004, and the ATIP Coordinator now has full authority for the approval of exemptions under the Act. At the same time, authority for routine administrative decisions was delegated to the Senior Analyst positions.

Furthermore, upon implementing the Improvement Plan, certain processes have been eliminated and others are now handled in parallel rather than sequentially. We will continue to monitor these processes over the coming year to ensure that best practices are in place.

In spite of competing pressures and priorities, your recommendation concerning ATIP resources will be taken into consideration.

In closing, I wish to assure you that we will continue to do our best to meet the requirements of the Access to Information Act."