Our investigation uncovered that the RWO had not provided any of the responsive records to their Designated Access Officer (DAO) for processing, and that they could not confirm how many pages of responsive records they held. A DAO is responsible for processing records in response to access requests and is familiar with the legislated duties under the Act. Rather than assessing each record to determine whether there was authority under the ATIPPA to withhold it, the RWO had informed the DAO that any records they held would be withheld from the applicant under section 72 of the ATIPPA. This section requires a public body to withhold information about a personnel assessment.

While many of the records held by the RWO related to personnel assessments, many did not. We found that section 72 likely did not apply to many of the records. Also, we found the initial page count provided to the applicant was inaccurate – an additional 500 pages of responsive records were found. These additional records also hadn’t been provided to the DAO for processing and were unilaterally withheld under section 72 of the ATIPPA. Further, we learned that other program areas had provided their records to the DAO for processing and that some of this information was released to the applicant in response to the same access request.