Mayor Keith Campbell - Governance & Communication Portfolio Report - 18 January 2017

Communication

Council does it best to ensure that we have transparent and effective processes, and decision-making in the public interest. We endeavour to keep up-to-date information on processes and decisions of Council on Council’s website.

Under Queensland’s Right to Information Act 2009 and Information Privacy Act 2009, members of the community are able to apply for access to documents held by Council (subject to statutory exemptions). The Acts also allow members of the community to apply for and make amendments to be made to documents concerning their personal affairs, where it is believed the information is incomplete, out-of-date, inaccurate or misleading.

The Governance section receives and processes all Council’s Right to Information and Information Privacy requests. In 2015/16 they dealt with 20 applications.

Applicants who are not satisfied with the response provided by Council are able to have matters referred for consideration by the Information Commissioner.  During 2015/16 there was only two (2) applications for independent review, indicating that most applicants were generally satisfied with the approach taken by the Governance Section in processing requests for information. The two (2) independent reviews were successfully resolved through negotiation between the applicant and the Office of the Information Commissioner.

You can find details of non-personal information released under the Right to Information Act 2009 on the disclosure log available on Councils website.