Skip to Content
From Monday 12 September 2020, OVIC's website will no longer be supported in Internet Explorer (IE).
We recommend installing Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Opera to visit the site.

Routine requests for information

OVERVIEW

This practice note outlines when a request is considered to be a routine request, including for the purposes of calculating access charges. All legislative references are to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic) (the Act) unless otherwise stated.

A ROUTINE REQUEST

A routine request is a request that an agency receives on a regular or routine basis or relates to information that could be either proactively or informally released outside the Act.

Documents that fall within the description of a routine request are those that can be disclosed as part of an agency’s normal administrative practices. For example, this might include a request for:

  • an individual’s payment summaries;
  • information provided to the agency by the applicant; or
  • published reports or other publicly available information.

WHY IT MATTERS IF A REQUEST IS A ROUTINE REQUEST

Section 22(1)(g) notes that a charge for providing access (access charges) must be waived if the request is a routine request for access to a document.

This means an agency cannot impose any access charges under any circumstances where the request is a routine request.

See Practice Note 11 for further information on estimating and calculating access charges.

PROCESSING A ROUTINE REQUEST

Where possible, routine requests for documents or information should be processed outside the Act. See Practice Note 2 Proactive release and Practice Note 6 Informal release for more information on this. However, in some circumstances it may not be appropriate to process a routine request outside the Act.

For example, this might include:

  • where certain information is exempt and it is necessary to give an applicant review rights; or
  • to ensure an agency officer has protections against actions for defamation or breach of confidence as a result of disclosing the document (see section 62).

As noted above, where a routine request is processed under the Act, access charges must be waived (section 22(1)(g)).

Download

Practice-Note-7-Routine-requests.docx

Practice-Note-7-Routine-requests.docx
Size 482.04 KB

Download

Contents

Back to Index
Back to top
Back to Top