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Document
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P-890
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File #
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P-9400663
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Institution/HIC
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Ministry of Housing
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: This is an appeal under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ). The Ministry of Housing (the Ministry) received a request for information concerning rent review applications. The first part of the request related to a specific property under review. The requester also sought extensive information on all rent reduction applications filed in the province since the introduction of the Rent Control Act . In its initial decision letter, the Ministry identified the records responsive to the first part of the request, which it advised were located at the Scarborough Rent Control Office. The Ministry also indicated that most of the information responsive to the second part of the request could be accessed from four of its rent control computer systems. This decision contained a fee estimate of $2,662.83. The Ministry stated further that a decision on access could only be made on a final review of the records but that "exemption(s) might apply to the records". The requester applied for a waiver of the fee on the basis of financial hardship. The Ministry subsequently issued a second decision letter, in which it denied the request for the fee waiver. This letter provided a more detailed "interim" access decision on the records, indicating that the invasion of privacy exemption, (section 21 of the Act ), would apply and that the requester would be granted access to approximately 25 percent of the records. The requester appealed the Ministry's denial of the fee waiver, its calculation of the fee estimate and the provision of an interim decision on access by the Ministry, rather than a final access decision. A Notice of Inquiry was provided to the Ministry and the appellant. Representations were received from both parties. DISCUSSION: INTERIM ACCESS DECISION I will first consider whether the Ministry's decision to make an interim access decision, rather than a final decision, was appropriate in the circumstances of this appeal. Order 81 addresses the situation in which a record may be "unduly expensive to produce for inspection by the head in making a decision ... whether the undue expense is caused by either the size of the record, the number of records or the physical location of the record within the institution." In such a case, the head can issue an interim decision indicating to the requester the degree of access which he or she is likely to receive, together with a reasonable estimate of the proposed fees. The Ministry has not indicated that the records at issue are unduly expensive to produce for inspection, such that the Order 81 procedures should apply. The Ministry has stated in its representations that the records responsive to the first part of the request, comprising 603 pages, are located in the rent review files at the local rent control office. The records responsive to part two of the request may be accessed from four computer systems. The Ministry states that it has received 2,967 rent reduction applications to date. The Ministry explains that it may have to print one page, per system, per address (application) to retrieve all the requested information. By my calculation, the Ministry may thus be required to print out 11,868 pages. The Ministry does not claim that it must develop a computer program to access this information. The Ministry's representations go on to state that: It should be noted that rent regulation and rent control orders and working papers are standardized and that the records which make up a file have been itemized in the Rent Control Guideline for dealing with FOI requests, complete with tables indicating their releasibility. Therefore, the estimate of 25% releasibility is researched and appropriate, based on the principle of active dissemination which the program area adheres to. Moreover, in its first decision letter, the Ministry described the specific information which it would be able to provide from each of the four computer systems. It is true that the requested information consists of a very large number of pages (12,471 pages in total). However, the records related to the specific property under review are located in a discrete file in a local office. The records to be produced from the four computer systems consist of documents containing the same, specific information as outlined in the Ministry's first decision letter. Thus, while this information will be contained in the records for each of the 2,967 rent reduction applications, the type of information which the Ministry must review in order to make its access decision is the same. Moreover, the records are standardized and the Ministry guidelines explain how the records should be prepared or severed under the Act . Accordingly, based on the information provided by the Ministry, I do not believe that this is a situation in which the records are unduly expensive to produce for review by the Ministry prior to making a final decision on access. Accordingly, I find that this was not a situation in which the Ministry should have issued an interim decision on access. Therefore, I am ordering the Ministry to provide the appellant with a final decision on access to all of the records at issue in this appeal in accordance with section 29 of the Act . In particular, the Ministry should identify the records or the parts of records to which the personal privacy exemption will apply so that the appellant will be in a position to know the information that will be released to him upon payment of the fees upheld in this order. In order that this appeal may proceed as expeditiously as possible, I will now consider the issues of the fee estimate and the waiver of the fee. FEE ESTIMATE Section 57(1) of the Act reads as follows: Where no provision is made for a charge or fee under any other Act, a head shall require the person who makes a request for access to a record to pay, (a) a search charge for every hour of manual search required in excess of two hours to locate a record; (b) the costs of preparing the record for disclosure; (c) computer and other costs incurred in locating, retrieving, processing and copying a record; and (d) shipping costs. Section 6 of Regulation 460, made under the Act , states, in part: The following are the fe
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Anita Fineberg
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Published
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Mar 15, 1995
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Type
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Order
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2013
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. All Rights Reserved.
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