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Document
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P-1605
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File #
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P_9800078
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Institution/HIC
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Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services
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Summary
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BACKGROUND: The Integrated Justice Project (the IJ Project) is an undertaking by the Government of Ontario to identify, design, develop and implement new ways of managing the judicial system. The IJ Project will result in the restructuring of Ontario's justice system through the implementation of business re-engineering and technological solutions involving the municipal and provincial police, the criminal and civil courts and correctional services. In 1996, the Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG) and the Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services (the Ministry) solicited proposals for the IJ Project, through a Common Purpose Procurement process (the CPP). The CPP process is defined as follows: Common Purpose Procurement is a competitive procurement process for selecting a private sector partner to work closely with government to identify, design, develop and implement solutions to complex business problems. These projects generally involve a multi-stage process. Both government and the private partner share the risks, investments and rewards of the project. The Ministry has included Management Board's Common Purpose Procurement Managers Guide which describes the circumstances when the CPP process may be of benefit: When a Ministry has a multi-stage design-build-operate project and does not have the right mix of time, skills and money to identify, design and develop its own solution, then the Ministry needs private sector expertise and resources. Since the Ministry does not have the resources to write detailed specifications before selecting a partner, vendors cannot propose prices at this early stage of the project. And since the Ministry needs private sector investment and will likely be unable to pay a return on that investment until the project succeeds in providing anticipated benefits, the potential vendor-partners must be capable of sharing the project risks and investments with deferred benefits. In contrast to traditional procurement processes where proposals are selected chiefly on the basis of lowest or evaluated cost, the CPP process selects partners on proven experience and expertise, project approach and management, financial stability and capacity, and financial and partnership arrangements for sharing the risks, investment and benefits. ... Project management, risk management and contract management are especially important with CPP because of the scope and complexity of the project and the innovative nature of the partnership involved. This is only the second time that such a process has been utilized by a ministry. A consortium made up of the affected party in this appeal and other private sector companies, known as the IJ Team, was identified as the highest ranking vendor for the IJ Project. The affected party is identified as the "primary vendor" from the IJ Team. A "Master Agreement" was entered into by MAG, the Ministry and the affected party and constitutes the subject of the request. NATURE OF THE APPEAL: MAG received a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ) for access to contract documents relating to the IJ project being considered by MAG and its negotiations with several named companies. The requester then clarified that the request was for any and all contract documents pertaining to the Integrated Justice system that had been signed by MAG and a named company (the affected party). MAG could not locate any records responsive to the request and it forwarded the request to the Ministry. The Ministry located one record in response to the request and denied access to it on the basis of sections 17(1) (third party information) and 18(1) (economic and other government interests) of the Act . The requester appealed the denial of access. As I have indicated previously, the record at issue consists of a "Master Agreement" between the Ministry, MAG and the affected party (the Agreement). The Agreement relates to the IJ Project, a government initiative to identify, design, develop and implement new ways of managing the judicial system. This office provided a Notice of Inquiry to the appellant, the affected party and the Ministry. Representations were received from all parties. PRELIMINARY MATTERS: Adequacy of the decision letter The appellant submits that the decision letter was inadequate in that it failed to provide any reasons for denying access to the requested information, pursuant to section 29(1)(b)(ii) of the Act . The appellant states that he "has a statutory entitlement to full and cogent reasons explaining" the Ministry's decision to deny access. The appellant goes on to say that this has limited his ability to make "clear and detailed representations" and he submits that he should be given an opportunity to "substantively rebut any reasons eventually put forward by the Ministry or the affected third party." Section 29(1)(b)(ii) of the Act states: Notice of refusal to give access to a record or a part thereof under section 26 shall set out, (b) where there is such a record, (ii) the reason the provision applies to the record. In Order M-936, former Inquiry Officer Anita Fineberg addressed this issue in the context of a claim under section 52(3) of the Act . She commented that "the purpose of the inclusion of the above information in a notice of refusal is to put the requester in a position to make a reasonably informed decision on whether to seek a review of the head's decision" (Orders 158, P-235 and P-324). She found that the decision letter to the appellant in that case was inadequate in that it simply restated the sections of the Act which contained the exemptions the institution was relying on. However, she also found that no useful purpose would be served by requiring the institution to provide a new, more detailed decision letter. In my view, the same holds true in the present situation. The decision letter provided by the Ministry does not explicitly state the reasons why access to the information was deni
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Legislation
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FIPPA
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17(1)(a), (b) & (c)
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29(1)(b)(ii)
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52(13)
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Mumtaz Jiwan
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Published
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Aug 21, 1998
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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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