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Document
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PO-1943
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File #
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PA-000261-1
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Institution/HIC
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Ministry of Training, Colleges & Universities
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: The appellant submitted a request to the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (the Ministry) under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ) for information relating to College des Grands Lacs (the College), specifically: All records pertaining to budgetary matters and financial verifications and audits of the College from 1995 to the present; All letters of resignation of Board members of the College from 1995 to the present; All correspondence dated 1996 and 1997 between the ministers of Education of the province of Ontario and Board members of the College; All correspondence between the College's Board members and the Council of Colleges of Ontario from 1995 to the present; All ministerial briefing notes concerning the College since 1995 to the present; All records concerning the funding of the literacy program "Programme de Formation de Base" from 1995 to present; and All records concerning the cancellation in 1999 and/or 2000 of the literacy program "Programme de Formation de Base" at the College. The Ministry issued an interim decision advising the appellant that it had located the responsive records. The Ministry estimated that the fee to generate the requested information would be $1486.20. This amount was broken down into search time ($1350) and reproduction or photocopying ($136.20). The Ministry also indicated that based on a preliminary review of the information contained in the records, most of the information may be exempt from disclosure pursuant to sections 14 (law enforcement), 17 (third party information), 18 (economic and other interests) and 21 (invasion of privacy) of the Act . The appellant appealed the fee estimate and subsequently requested a fee waiver from the Ministry. The Ministry refused to waive the fees. During mediation, the appellant confirmed that he was not appealing the Ministry's decision relating to his request for a fee waiver. Therefore, the only issue to be determined in this appeal is whether the Ministry's calculation of the fee estimate was made in accordance with the fee provisions of the Act . I sent a Notice of Inquiry setting out the facts and issues in this appeal to the Ministry, initially. The Ministry responded and I attached its representations in their entirety to the Notice of Inquiry that I sent to the appellant. The appellant also made representations. After reviewing these representations, I decided that they raised issues to which the Ministry should be given an opportunity to reply, specifically, issues relating to the breadth of the Ministry's interpretation of the appellant's request and issues relating to the reorganization of the Ministry which may have an impact on the reasonableness of its fee estimate. The Ministry replied to the reply Notice of Inquiry that I sent to it. PRELIMINARY MATTER: FEE WAIVER In his representations, the appellant indicates that he works for a public media outlet with a limited and decreasing budget. Moreover, he believes that publication of the requested records is in the public interest. These arguments relate to the issue of whether a fee waiver should be granted in the circumstances. As I noted above, during mediation the appellant confirmed that the Ministry's decision refusing his request for a fee waiver was not part of this appeal. Accordingly, I will not entertain this issue in this order. DISCUSSION: FEE ESTIMATE The charging of fees is authorized by section 57(1) of the Act , which states: A head shall require the person who makes a request for access to a record to pay fees in the amounts prescribed by the regulations for, (a) the costs of every hour of manual search required 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; (d) shipping costs; and (e) any other costs incurred in responding to a request for access to a record. Section 6 of Regulation 460 also deals with fees. It states, in part, as follows: The following are the fees that shall be charged for the purposes of subsection 57(1) of the Act for access to a record: 1. For photocopies and computer printouts, 20 cents per page. ... 3. For manually searching a record, $7.50 for each 15 minutes spent by any person. 4. For preparing a record for disclosure, including severing a part of the record, $7.50 for each 15 minutes spent by any person. The Ministry included with its representations an affidavit sworn by the Director of the Colleges Branch of the Ministry (the Director) and a copy of the "Colleges Branch submission; breakdown of hours and fee administration form" and the "Council of Regents submission: fee administration form". Search costs With respect to the search conducted by the Colleges Branch, the Director states: Due to the broad nature of the request for information that was received by the Colleges Branch, it was necessary to canvass staff in all areas of the branch for records relating to the college system, over the period of time indicated, in an effort to determine the relevancy of materials pertaining to the request. This is because no single set our records existed in any one area of the branch that would have contained all of the information requested. I designated … as the person with responsibility to co-ordinate the search … a Senior Policy Advisor in the Governance, Accountability and Corporate Support Unit [the GACS] of the Colleges branch … When the request was received and the search w
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Laurel Cropley
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Published
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Sep 06, 2001
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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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