Source: https://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/transparency/access_information/annual_report/2014_2015/access_information_ar_2014_2015.html
Timestamp: 2018-01-21 06:20:17
Document Index: 508035091

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 1', 'art 19', 'art 8', 'art 9', 'art 15', 'art 5', 'art 5', 'art 12']

Annual Report to Parliament 2014-2015 - Access to Information Act - National Research Council Canada
Annual Report to Parliament 2014-2015 - Access to Information Act
NRC Annual Report to Parliament 2014‑2015 – Access to Information Act (PDF, 1,309 KB)
IV. Access to information-related training and education
VI. Complaints, investigations and federal court cases
VII. Monitoring of access to information requests
In accordance with Section 72 of the Access to Information Act, this thirty-first Annual Report on the administration of the Access to Information Act at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) describes how NRC discharged its responsibilities in relation to the Act in the fiscal year 2014‑2015. The Annual Report is to be tabled in Parliament in accordance with section 72 of the Access to Information Act.
From 1 April 2014 to 19 August 2014, the NRC President delegated the responsibilities associated with the administration of the Access to Information Act to the Executive Vice-President and Secretary General and to the Director, Corporate Governance. Partial authority is delegated to the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Coordinator.
The delegation of authority changed as of 20 August 2014. The President delegated full authority for the application and administration of the Access to Information Act to the Director General, Knowledge Management and to the Director, Information Management Services Directorate. The ATIP Coordinator's authority remained the same.
During the period covered by this report, the NRC Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) office was part of NRC Knowledge Management Branch (NRC‑KM).
In 2014‑2015, the NRC ATIP Office was comprised of one part-time Coordinator, one senior ATIP Officer and two junior ATIP Officers (one full-time and one part-time).
The ATIP Office is responsible for the coordination and implementation of policies, guidelines and procedures to ensure the organization's compliance with the Access to Information Act.To that end, the office provides the following services to the organization:
In accordance with Section 71 of the Access to Information Act, the public may inspect manuals used by employees to administer or carry out programs or activities that affect the public at Building M-55, NRC Montreal Road Campus, Ottawa, Ontario.
Annex B provides a summarized statistical report on the access requests received and processed by the National Research Council of Canada from 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015. This section provides an interpretation of the statistical report.
During the fiscal year, NRC received thirty-six (36) new access to information (ATI) requests. Six (6) requests were outstanding from the previous fiscal year, for a total of forty-two (42) requests to process in the 2014‑2015 fiscal year. NRC completed forty-one (41) access to information requests during this reporting period. One (1) request was carried over into the next fiscal year.
ATI number of requests received and processed
Long description for ATI number of requests received and processed
66 68 5
The trends indicate a slight decrease in the number of access to information requests received; however, the complexity of the requests has significantly increased mainly due to the following reasons:
The number of pages that had to be reviewed by the ATIP Unit has dramatically increased;
There was an increase in the amount of consultations needed with other departments and third parties;
Due to the way the requests are written, the ATIP Unit is required to retrieve records from many levels of the organization including individual employees and operating units. In consequence, the analysts have to go through a large amount of paper which often consists of duplicates and email chains. The ATIP Office will continue to reinforce the training on email best practices across NRC to resolve this particular issue.
The breakdown of the source of requestors is as follows: fifteen (15) from the media, two (2) from academia, six (6) from business, one (1) from organization and twelve (12) from the public.
Long description for ATI Requests
The subject of the thirty-six (36) requests received related to varied sectors across the organization as follows:
Grants and Contributions including the NRC-Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC‑IRAP) 5
Contracting including call-ups and purchase orders 6
Program Research 6
Organizational and Financial Management 3
Section 9 of the Act provides for the extension of the statutory time limits if consultations are necessary or if the request is for a large volume of records and processing the request within the original time limit would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the organization. In addition, extensions are invoked when consultations are necessary to comply with the request or section 27(1) of the Act. NRC invoked an extension in the case of twenty-six (26) requests. The extensions involved records that contained confidential business information that required third party consultations and cases when meeting the original time limit of thirty days would have unreasonably interfered with the operations of the organization.
In summary, out of forty-one (41) completed requests, twenty (20) were completed in 30 days or less, six (6) were completed within 31 to 60 days seven (7) were completed between 61 and 120 days, five (5) were completed between 121 and 180 days and three (3) were completed between 181 and 365 days. All levels of NRC worked diligently to ensure a high performance in meeting statutory deadlines.
NRC is asked by other government organizations for its input on disclosure of information that had originated within the National Research Council Canada. This reporting year, fifty-four (54) consultation requests were received from other government departments and two (2) consultation requests were received from other organizations, compared to forty (40) from other government departments and zero (0) from organizations in 2013‑2014 and thirty-three (33) from other government departments and one (1) from organizations in 2012‑2013.
Long description for Consultation requests
The ATIP Office works closely with the offices of primary interest at NRC to respond effectively to these requests. The increase in consultation requests is mainly due to the access to information requests received across government departments about the cyber intrusion on NRC IT infrastructure.
Sections 2.2 and 2.3 of the Statistical Report are intended to identify the number of requests in cases where specific types of exemptions and exclusions were invoked.NRC invoked exemptions and exclusions pursuant to sections 15(1) - Def, 16(2)(c), 18(a)(b), 19(1), 20(1)(a)(b)(c)(d), 21(1)(a)(b)(c)(d), 23 and 69(1)(a)(c) of the Act.
Section 15 (International affairs and Defence) was invoked in one (1) case.
Section 16 (Law enforcement and investigations) was invoked in five (5) cases.
Section 18 (Economic Interests of Canada) was invoked in four (4) cases.
Section 19 (Personal Information) was invoked in fourteen (14) cases and was applied to the information that is considered personal and where individual consent was not obtained.
Section 20 (Third Party Information) was invoked in twenty-two (22) cases. The exemptions applied pursuant to Section 20 involve confidential business information belonging to a third party.The third parties in question were consulted pursuant to section 27 of the Act and provided substantial rationales in support of the protection of their information.
Section 21 (Advice, etc.) was invoked in twenty-seven (27) cases. The information severed under this section is considered part of NRC's business operations which include internal advice, recommendations and deliberations between Senior NRC Officials and positions of plans developed for the purpose of negotiations and as well as plans relating to management of personnel. The release of this information would have compromised the integrity of NRC's decision-making process and the candidness of discussions.
Section 23 (Solicitor-Client Privilege) was invoked in two (2) cases. The release of this information would have revealed confidential information provided by NRC's legal advisors.
Section 69 (Cabinet confidences), which provides for exclusion of confidences of the Privy Council, was invoked in two (2) cases.
As a result of web posting summaries of completed access to information requests, NRC received additional informal requests for previously released information. The ATIP Office processed eighteen (18) informal requests (not subject to the Access to information Act) in this reporting period, compared to fourteen (14) in 2013‑2014, three (3) in 2012‑2013 and zero (0) for 2011‑2012.
Informal Access to Information Requests
Long description for Informal Access to Information Requests
Within the context of its overall roles and responsibilities, NRC's ATIP Office reviewed a total of one hundred sixty-one (161) parliamentary questions received for the period of 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015, compared to seventy-six (76) in 2013‑2014 and eighty-six (86) in 2012‑2013.
The annual statistical report for the fiscal year 2014‑2015 is included at the end of this chapter, as Annex BFootnote 1.
All training sessions included information on personal information and the privacy legislation which has been accounted for in the Privacy Act annual report. ATIP tools are available on NRC external and internal websites.
ATIP employees continually work to sensitize and guide employees, third parties and requesters regarding the requirements of the Access to Information Act by means of ongoing dialogue and bilateral discussions. During the reporting period, ATIP Coordinator and Officers responded to inquiries from colleagues, providing advice and guidance on various subjects pertaining to Access to Information legislation.
With the completion of the previously announced (1 April 2014) transfer of the ATIP function from the NRC Secretary General's Office (NRC-SGO) to the NRC Knowledge Management (NRC‑KM) Branch in September 2014, the stage was set for a more robust integration of ATIP considerations with planning, training, records management, and information security strategies at NRC. This situation will ensure that the NRC ATIP Office has the means to input directly into the above processes and to draw on resources related to issues raised by the cyber intrusion and its aftermath.
Due to the cyber intrusion, some delays occurred in the posting of the summaries of completed Access to Information requests as well as its ATIP Annual Reports and the revision of its InfoSource Chapter on its website.
Zero (0) complaints were filed against NRC in 2014‑2015.
Three (3) outstanding complaints from fiscal year 2011‑2012 are now closed. Two (2) complaints (A2011-0024 and A2011-0058) were discontinued and one (1) complaint (A2011-0026) was considered well-founded and resolved.
There were no court cases in 2014‑2015.
A report of Access to Information requests is shared with the Ministerial Liaison Office on a weekly basis. A report of active ATIP files is shared with the NRC Communications Branch on a weekly basis and a bi-weekly more detailed report is provided to delegated authorities.
The accompanying Statistical Tables do not always present data reflecting the total number of requests as they often focus on specific subsets such as cases that were delayed beyond the due dates or those that list only requests that involved the disclosure of all documents or a partial disclosure. Other differences from the totals for the year are due to cases when, for example, more than one extension was required.
Part 1 - Requests Under the Access to Informaton Act
Received during reporting period 36
Closed during reporting period 41
0 6 2 1 0 0 0 9
0 2 4 6 5 3 0 20
2 18 6 7 5 3 0 41
15(1) - Def.Table note 2 1
18(a) 3
19(1) 14
21(1)(a) 10
21(1)(b) 8
All disclosed 9 0 0
Disclose in part 19 1 0
Total 28 1 0
All disclosed 393 393 9
Disclosed in part 8,446 7,299 20
All disclosed 7 97 2 296 0 0 0 0 0 0
Disclosed in part 9 426 5 1,322 4 2,794 2 2,757 0 0
Total 18 523 7 1,618 4 2,794 2 2,757 0 0
2.5.3 Other complexitites
Disclosed in part 15 0 0 0 15
21 6 15 0 0
1 to 15 days 4 1 5
31 to 60 days 0 4 4
61 to 120 days 1 4 5
9(1)(c) 9(1)(c)
Disclosed in part 5 1 11 9
Total 5 1 11 9
30 days or less 0 0 0 1
31 to 60 days 0 0 4 0
61 to 120 days 0 1 2 1
121 to 180 days 0 1 0 0
181 to 365 days 3 0 3 0
Application 35 $175 1 $5
Production 1 $342 0 $0
Total 36 $517 1 $5
Part 5 - Consultations Received From Other Government Institutions and Organizations
Received during reporting period 54 2,121 2 235
Outstanding from the previous reporting period 2 45 0 0
Total 56 2,166 2 235
Closed during the reporting period 54 2,046 2 235
Pending at the end of the reporting period 2 120 0 0
Disclose entirely 35 2 1 0 0 0 0 38
Disclose in part 12 3 0 1 0 0 0 16
Total 47 5 1 1 0 0 0 54
5.3 Recommendations and completion time for consultations requests
Fewer Than 101-500 Pages Processed
1 to 15 1 34 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 1 34 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Full-time employees 1.50