The Information and Privacy Commission (IPC) has found Central Coast Council failed to meet its obligations when a resident tried to get some information from it.
After months of being ignored by Council, the resident complained to the IPC.
The IPC has ruled the complaint was justified in full.
It has recommended more training for council staff after looking into six different issues arising from the one complaint.
It also suggested Council needed to update its policies for dealing with communication from the public.
On one of the issues, the IPC said that, as Council had acknowledged their mistake, it was anticipated that they would use it as a learning opportunity to update relevant policy and further train staff.
The IPC noted that Council apologised for one of the issues where it had closed off service requests without contacting the resident.
A timeline showed the months it took resident Kevin Brooks to try to get Council to respond to a Government Information Public Access (GIPA) request for information about a particular type of council contract.
Mr Brooks was standing as a Ratepayers Choice candidate in the council election in September and in May he first requested the information which he was hoping to use in his election campaign.
Mr Brooks lodged a complaint with the IPC after Council refused to process his GIPA application, and declined to respond to any of his emails or complaints.
On May 10, 2024, Mr Brooks lodged his GIPA, asking for information in relation to community engagement contracts.
Over the next five months or so, repeated emails asking for the GIPA application to be processed were not answered.
Under the Act applications should be processed within 28 days.
Mr Brooks then lodged a formal complaint on the Council’s online complaints portal, but the complaint was closed and marked “completed” despite Mr Brooks receiving no response.
The same thing happened two more times.
A further email about the closure of these complaints to the Director responsible for the complaints system was also ignored.
Even a request from IPC for information was late in being delivered.
The IPC contacted Council on Mr Brooks’ behalf and obtained an undertaking from Council that it would respond to the GIPA application by 27 September, which was too late for Mr Brooks as the elections were held earlier in September.
Council finally responded on October 31, long after the council elections were finalised.
The information was no longer of value to Mr Brooks.
He said he lodged the complaint to the IPC in the hope that Council would at least face some accountability for what he called its “disgraceful conduct”.
Mr Brooks believed the weight of evidence pointed to wilful obstruction of the GIPA Act by Council.
The IPC said while council had breached the Act, and the complaint was ruled “justified in full”, it had no information to show that Council may have been deliberately obstructive.
Council was contacted for comment.
