Source: http://international.gc.ca/gac-amc/publications/atip-aiprp/annual_reports-rapport_annuels/parl1213_atia_lai.aspx?lang=eng
Timestamp: 2017-10-19 05:20:38
Document Index: 280166793

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 592', 'art 18', 'art 440', 'art 95061', 'art 392', 'art 239', 'art 269', 'art 27', 'art 0']

Annual Report to Parliament on the Administration of the Access to Information Act - 2012-2013
We are pleased to table the Annual Report to Parliament on the administration of the Access to Information Act (ATIA) for fiscal year 2012-2013, as required under subsections 72(1) and 72(2) of the Act. This will be the final report for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada subsequent reports will be in the name of the recently created Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.
The Department's legal mandate, as set out in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Act, RSC 1985, c. E-22, in force during the relevant reporting period, is to:
conduct all official communication between the Government of Canada and the government of any other country and between the Government of Canada and any international ganization;
In addition, Passport Canada, which was a Special Operating Agency of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada during the relevant reporting period, is responsible for issuing, refusing, revoking and withholding Canadian passports, in addition to administering their use and recovery. Passport Canada supervises all matters relating to Canadian travel documents and provides guidance to Canadian government offices abroad, enabling them to issue passports. Besides serving the public directly, Passport Canada also works with national and international police authorities, security agents, border officials and any federal, provincial and territorial authorities that provide identification documents. Please see delegated authorities section for more information.
In 2012-2013, the ATIP staff fluctuated between forty-five and fifty-three employees including contractors to fulfill DFAIT’s obligations under the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. As of March 31, the ATIP Office consisted of; a director, three deputy directors, six team leaders, twenty-nine analysts at various levels, six clerical staff and ten consultants. The work ranges from processing complex and/or voluminous requests to more straight forward, routine requests and consultations from other government departments as well as providing advice to internal and external stakeholders and providing training to departmental staff.
The Division, in dealing with staffing challenges, is continuing its external staffing process at all levels; this process will be completed in early FY 2013-14. The Division will continue to look for new practices and procedures to keep up with the increasing workload.
Under Section 73 the Act, the Minister’s authority is delegated to enable the Department to meet its legislated requirements as well as exercise its powers. Since October 2009 responsibility for all sections of the Act was delegated to the Deputy Ministers, to the Corporate Secretary, to the Director of the Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, as well as to the Deputy Directors of the ATIP Office. (See Annex A)
In addition, Passport Canada as a special operating agency has its own ATIP delegated authority to respond to requests under both the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act as they relate to its passport records. This delegation came into effect on April 1, 2011. The Passport Canada annual reports to Parliament are attached.
Between April 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013, the Department received one thousand one hundred and forty-eight requests for information under the Access to Information Act, which was a 28.6 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. Along with those new requests received, three hundred and fifty-seven requests were carried over from the previous fiscal year, for a total of one thousand five hundred and five requests.
During the reporting period, one thousand and thirty-three requests were completed and four hundred and seventy-two still active files were carried over to the next reporting period.
Disclosed in part 592
Nothing disclosed (exempted 6
Unable to process 197
Abandoned by applicant 112
The exemptions most commonly used by the Department during the period were sub-sections 15(1) [international affairs] and 19(1) [personal information] as well as paragraphs 21(1)(a) [advice] and 21(1)(b) [consultations and deliberations]. These were invoked for 468, 437, 240 and 265 requests, respectively. The Department also applied exclusions under sub-section 69(1) [confidences of cabinet] in sixty-two instances.
During the reporting period, the Department claimed extensions pursuant to paragraphs 9(1)(a), 9(1)(b) and 9(1)(c): 335, 204, and 51 times, respectively.
For the reporting period, the Department collected $6,273.00 in fees, and waived $1,249.010 in fees.
Between April 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013, the Department received one thousand and seventy-four ATI Act consultations from other government institutions, which represents a 19.8% decrease over the last reporting period. Most requests originated from federal institutions subject to the Access to Information Act. However, a small percentage of consultations originated from other organizations.
During the reporting period, one thousand three hundred and twenty-seven consultations were completed representing one hundred and five thousand one hundred and sixty-two (105,162) pages.
During 2012-2013, the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Division continued to provide analysts with the necessary training and tools to perform their jobs effectively via training sessions developed to meet the ATIP Office’s training needs and a dedicated trainer. Furthermore, in conjunction with the Centre for Corporate Learning Services, Learning Roadmaps are being developed in order to effectively identify and formalize the training requirements for employees in the ATIP Division.
The ATIP Office also continued to benefit from its ATIP Professional Development Program which allows DFAIT to “grow its own” ATIP Analysts due to the lack of experienced ATIP Analysts within the federal ATIP Community. This program has been very successful in addressing recruitment, retention and succession planning issues with eight employees presently in the program.
The Policy & Governance Team addresses the ATIP training needs of the ATIP office, the Department and other government departments. The Policy and Governance Team also ensures the Department complies with all other aspects and regulations of the Access to Information Act, Privacy Act and TBS requirements.
The department’s Intranet ATIP website is accessible to all DFAIT employees as is a newly designed Wiki page. In addition, an ATIP Group has been created in AGORA, a new collaboration tool to quickly share information, best practices and facilitate collaboration across the department.
The ATIP Division maintains a structured and department-wide ATIP awareness program to ensure that officials across the Department understand their roles and responsibilities. DFAIT has also expanded the forums within which ATIP training is delivered to include; staff meetings, “DFAIT 101” courses which are designed for new employees, and pre-posting training sessions in order to better prepare employees for their work at Canada’s missions abroad.
The ATIP Division also holds sessions with subject matter experts during which records are reviewed in order to educate employees on the exercise of discretion when making recommendations for severance, obstruction and injury.
To ensure that employees at mission also receive necessary training, sessions are delivered to Locally Engaged Staff, Trade, Political and Consular Officers, and Administrative Assistants using videoconferencing or Webinar technology. During this reporting period three missions received training via videoconference. In addition, an online interactive ATIP awareness tutorial, developed in collaboration with the Canadian Foreign Service Institute, was made available. For this reporting period, one hundred and eighty-two employees completed the online training. This important tool allows employees to receive training without additional resources being allotted to such efforts. As part of the e-learning initiative a two-hour Podcast was produced and will be available to all employees in the fall of 2013.
As reported in the 2010-2011 Annual Report to Parliament, a new training program on section 15 of the Act (injury to international affairs) was developed and again delivered during this reporting period to the federal ATIP community via TBS community meetings and various training sessions. This presentation provides information on the responsibilities of DFAIT vis-à-vis the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act as it pertains to records that have international implications. The presentation also provides other federal institutions with clear direction as to when DFAIT should be consulted in accordance with the New Directive of the Access to information Act which requires consultation with DFAIT on Section 15 of the Act only if another department requires additional information for the proper exercise of discretion to withhold or another department intends to disclose sensitive information pertaining to international affairs. As expected, this training was beneficial to other federal departments in identifying what information and/or records should be sent to DFAIT for consultation.
The ATIP Division also redesigned and refined both the training program for ATIP Liaison Officers and subject-matter experts within Offices of Primary Interest (OPIs) across the Department. Employees can register for these courses via an automated online service, which has improved the ATIP Division’s ability to deliver training.
DFAIT’s ATIP Division continuously strives to develop and refine its training tools through comments from employees participating in the various training session delivered.
Only one significant change was made to internal Access to Information Act processes or policies in 2012-2013. Unfortunately, the intake unit implemented the previous fiscal year did not result in the expected efficiencies and therefore the approach was discontinued and the officers were integrated into other file processing teams. The Department continued to place emphasis on educating departmental officials on their ATIP roles and responsibilities to ensure compliance and efficiencies.
During the reporting period, the Policy & Governance Team continued to revise privacy-related policy instruments, for example, a new Privacy Impact Assessment Template was completed. Additional instruments are being considered.
From April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013, eighty-three complaints were made to the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) regarding access to information requests to the Department. The reasons for the complaints are as follows:
Table 3a: Complaints, audits, and investigations
Refusal – Exemptions 10
Refusal – General 6
Refusal – Section 69 1
Furthermore, during FY 2012-13, sixty-eight complaints were closed. The findings on closed complaints are as follows:
Table 3b: Complaints, audits, and investigations
Not Well-Founded 25
While in the last reporting period less than 40% of the complaints lodged against DFAIT were well-founded, the Department takes the issue of complaints seriously. This is being addressed through numerous means including; using the ATIP Professional Development Program to recruit and promote several employees, carrying out staffing processes to fill vacant positions, providing ATIP Awareness sessions throughout the Department, updating the Bureau Intranet and Internet ATIP web sites, ensuring that new ATIP recruits receive hands-on training, launching the new online ATIP tutorial, providing ATIP training to other government institutions, and by having an officer dedicated to dealing only with complaints.
Reporting period: 2012/04/01 2013/03/31
Table 5: Number of requestes
Received during reporting period 1148
Outstanding from previous reporting period 357
Closed during reporting period 1033
Table 6: Source of requestes
Business (Private Sector) 233
Table 7: Disposition and completion time
All disclosed 8 42 26 11 6 5 0 98
Disclosed in part 18 112 73 160 73 115 41 592
All exempted 0 2 0 3 0 1 0 6
All exempted 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2
No records exist 39 116 23 13 4 2 0 197
Request transferred 21 1 0 0 0 0 0 22
Request abandoned 40 38 5 7 2 7 13 112
Treated informally 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 4
Table 8: Exemptions
15(1) - I.A.* 423
15(1) - S.A.* 11
Table 9: Exclusions
All disclosed 90 7 0
Disclosed in part 440 142 0
Table 11: Relevant pages processed and disclosed
All disclosed 2779 2190 98
Disclosed in part 95061 66561 592
All exempted 226 0 6
All excluded 21 0 2
Request abandoned 22456 0 112
Table 12: Relevant pages processed and disclosed by size of requests
All disclosed 90 998 7 702 1 490 0 0 0 0
Disclosed in part 392 11760 157 27488 25 11660 18 15653 0 0
All exempted 60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
All excluded 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Abandoned 89 0 12 0 6 0 4 0 1 0
All disclosed 14 0 0 0 14
Disclosed in part 239 8 247
All exempted 2 0 0 0 8
Abandoned 7 0 0 0 7
1 to 15 days 1 0 0
31 to 60 days 33 0 33
61 to 120 days 10 32 42
121 to 180 days 5 35 40
181 to 365 days 11 64 75
More than 365 days 9 42 51
All disclosed 19 0 9 1
Disclosed in part 269 23 173 42
All exempted 3 0 0 1
All excluded 0 1 1 0
No records exist 22 0 0 1
Request abandoned 22 1 6 6
30 days or less 92 3 27 2
31 to 60 days 57 5 52 16
61 to 120 days 133 5 71 22
121 to 180 days 26 6 27 7
181 to 365 days 22 6 11 3
365 days or more 5 0 1 1
Table 19: Fees
Application 1010 $5,050 23 $115
Search 5 $363 4 $268
Preparation 5 $860 4 $866
Table 20: Consultations received from other government institutions and organizations
Received during reporting period 1057 90615 17 613
Outstanding from the previous reporting period 381 37855 1 2
Closed during the reporting period 1313 104706 14 456
Pending at the end of the reporting period 125 23764 4 159
Table 21: Recommendations and completion time for consultations received from other government institutions
Disclose entirely 66 100 78 60 14 2 0 320
Disclose in part 27 127 195 273 104 69 11 800
Exempt entirely 8 3 6 3 1 2 1 24
Exclude entirely 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 4
Consult other institution 28 11 13 24 6 12 1 95
Other 22 19 13 10 0 5 1 70
Table 22: Recommendations and completion time for consultations
Disclose entirely 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 3
Disclose in part 0 3 1 2 2 1 0 9
Exclude entirely 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
Other 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Table 23: Completion time of consultations on Cabinet confidences
1 to 15 4 3
16 to 30 5 1
31 to 60 11 6
61 to 120 14 6
121 to 180 9 6
181 to 365 19 14
More than 365 18 14
Salaries $2,574,734
Overtime $18,542
Goods and Services $1,366,877
Professional services contracts $1,316,031
Other $50,846
Full-time employees 38.13 0.00 38.13
Consultants and agency personnel 24.18 0.00 0.00