Freedom of Information
Your rights
The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) gives you the right to:
- apply for access to Commonwealth government documents held by Australian Government departments and some statutory authorities,
- ask for an amendment to your personal information if it is out of date, incomplete, incorrect, or misleading, and
- seek review by the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) of a decision not to allow you access to a document you may have requested or your request to amend your personal record has not been granted.
What documents may you see?
The Act gives you a right to see:
- Documents, no matter how old, containing personal information about yourself
- Documents, no older than 1 December 1977, relating to anything else (they can be older if you need them to understand another document you already have)
- Documents including files, reports, computer printouts, tapes or disks, maps, plans, photographs, microfiche, tape recordings, films, or videotapes.
You can ask to access any document that we hold. We can refuse access to some documents, or parts of documents that are exempt. Exempt documents may include those relating to national security, documents containing material obtained in confidence, Cabinet documents, or other matters set out in the FOI Act.
You can get certain information, including personal information we hold about you, without following a formal process under the FOI Act. Contact the FOI Contact Officer for more information.
When you apply for access to documents, you may not necessarily get to see the whole document. You may also be refused access to a document in its entirety, as certain exemptions can apply under the FOI Act.
You should also check the information we have published under the Information Publication Scheme and Freedom of Information Disclosure Log to see if what you are seeking is already available.
Applicant feedback
Since late 2022, the ARC has received requests from applicants seeking access to information about banded feedback, detailed assessors’ and general assessors’ scores, assessments, and rankings for projects they are involved in (Applicant feedback) under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act).
As one of the ARC’s priorities, as outlined in the ARC Strategy 2022-2025 (i.e., to strengthen our engagement with the research sector and listen to your needs), commencing from funding announcements from March 2024, eligible applicants (both successful and unsuccessful) can now access their scores within the Research Management System (RMS), along with detailed assessments, when outcomes of the scheme are announced. Specifically, all applicants now receive the following information:
- Banded feedback
- Detailed Assessors’ scores, assessments, and rankings, and
- General Assessors’ scores and rankings
In keeping with peer review principles, assessors will remain anonymous. You can read more about Applicant feedback at Applicant Feedback | Australian Research Council.
Administrative access
Individuals (eligible applicants – successful and unsuccessful) have the following options in seeking their own personal and/or business information under administrative access (as explained at Applicant Feedback | Australian Research Council outlined above):
- Contact Applicant Feedback process, by emailing NCGP@arc.gov.au.
- Contact Applicant feedback for programs managed by the ARC’s Research Grants Services, by emailing GrantsServices@arc.gov.au.
For retrospective requests concerning eligible applicants (successful and unsuccessful) prior to March 2024, emails can be sent to NCGP@arc.gov.au or GrantsServices@arc.gov.au
If requests made under the FOI Act are sent to foi@arc.gov.au, but identified by the FOI Officer as suitable for administrative access (i.e. individuals own personal and/or business information), then the FOI Officer will respond to the individual as follows:
- The ARC can give you administrative access to the requested information, i.e., outside of the FOI Act process. Administrative access arrangements coexist, but operate independently of the FOI Act, and provide a less formal mechanism for accessing information. You can read more about the advantages of administrative access in the OAIC FOI Guidelines at paragraphs 3.2 to 3.5 FOI Guidelines (oaic.gov.au). These advantages may include cost benefits and potentially quicker processing times. Importantly, gaining administrative access to information does not prevent you from making FOI Act requests for additional information in the future.
- If you agree to receive the requested information through administrative access, please let us know as soon as possible by replying to this email. In your response, please also confirm that you agree to withdraw your FOI request, as the FOI legislation does not contemplate the two processes running concurrently.
- Once the ARC receives confirmation of your FOI request withdrawal, we will provide you with administrative access to the requested information. This may involve re-directing your response within the ARC to a suitable team (i.e., NCGP or Research Grant Services) for a response within 20 days from the date of the request.
- Please note, if we do not hear from you within 3 days, we will proceed on the basis that you wish to continue with your FOI request and will continue to process it under the legislation, in accordance with statutory timeframes.
Can you see all official documents?
No. The Act identifies certain types of documents which you may not be able to see (called exempt documents). These types of documents are those which the Parliament believes should normally be kept confidential to protect essential public interests or the private or business affairs of others.
If the ARC decides not to give access to the document you asked for, it must identify the documents withheld, give you written reasons for the decision, and advise you of your rights of appeal.
In most cases, an FOI request will be refused where it would lead to an unreasonable disclosure of someone else's personal information.
Where you want to see documents containing your own personal information, the ARC may ask to see some proof of your identity.
You can have documents containing personal information about you corrected?
Providing you have had lawful access to the documents, and they have been, or are being, used by the ARC for an administrative purpose, you may request for a document to be corrected.
You have a legal right to ask that it be corrected if, after seeing your documents, you believe the information they contain to be incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.
You can ask for corrections to be made by amending the record or adding an appropriate annotation, or both.
Companies, incorporated associations, and the like are not entitled to have records about their affairs corrected under the Act
To ask for correction of personal records you may:
- Simply write and ask. No application fee applies.
- Identify what information is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.
- Explain with as much detail as possible what the facts are and what evidence there is to support them
- Post, deliver or email foi@arc.gov.au your request to the ARC.
What will the ARC do when it gets your request for amendment of personal records?
The ARC must deal with your request as soon as practicable and tell you within 30 days what has been decided.
If the ARC decides not to make the changes you asked for (or decides to make different ones) it must tell you why and advise you of your rights of appeal.
How to make a request for documents
Your request must:
- be in writing
- identify the document you want
- state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act
- give an address in Australia at which notices under the FOI Act may be sent to you
- give as much information as you can about the document you want (for example, give a file number, a reference to a newspaper report about it or describe the subject matter in which you are interested).
You can use the Freedom of Information Application Form – PDF Format (21KB) – Word Format (21KB).
Alternatively, you can send your request:
| By post | FOI Contact Officer |
|---|---|
| Australian Research Council | |
| GPO Box 2702 | |
| CANBERRA ACT 2601 | |
| By email | foi@arc.gov.au |
If you ask a third party to make an FOI request on your behalf, you need to provide a specific, written authority to send copies of documents to you, care of that person, or to allow that person to inspect copies of documents containing information about you.
Fees and charges
There is no application fee for an FOI request.
There are no processing charges for requests for access to documents. However, processing charges may apply to other requests. The most common charges are:
| Activity item | Charge |
|---|---|
| Search and retrieval: time we spend searching for or retrieving a document | $15.00 per hour |
| Decision making: time we spend in deciding to grant or refuse a request, including examining documents, consulting with other parties, and making deletions | First five hours: Nil Subsequent hours: $20 per hour |
| Transcript: preparing a transcript from a sound recording, shorthand or similar medium | $4.40 per page of transcript |
| Photocopy | $0.10 per page |
| Inspection: supervision by an agency officer of your inspection of documents or hearing or viewing an audio or visual recording at our premises | $6.25 per half hour (or part thereof) |
| Delivery: posting or delivering a copy of a document at your request | Cost of postage or delivery |
If we decide to impose a charge, we will give you a written estimate and the basis of our calculation. Where the estimated charge is between $20 and $100, we may ask you to pay a deposit of $20, or where the estimated charge exceeds $100, we may ask you to pay a 25% deposit before we process your request.
You can ask for the charge to be waived or reduced for any reason, including financial hardship or on the grounds of public interest. If you do so, you should explain your reasons and you may need to provide some evidence.
What you can expect from us
The ARC must:
- notify you within 14 days that your request has been received
- deal with your request as soon as possible
- talk to you about any difficulties that may arise
- as soon as possible, give you an estimate of the charges, if any are applicable, and
- within 30 days write to you and tell you of the decision on giving you access. (Where a document contains information about other people or organisations, the ARC must consult with these third parties. The ARC may extend the time in which it is required to tell you about its decision by another 30 days to give third parties an opportunity to raise any objections or give consent to releasing their details).
How will the documents be given to you?
The ARC can let you see the documents or give you a copy.
Special procedures may apply if you want to see information which concerns your physical or mental health:
- the ARC may decide to give it to an appropriate health care worker, social worker or marriage guidance counsellor (here called a 'qualified person') of your choice, rather than to you directly
- this can be done where the ARC thinks that giving it to you directly might prejudice your physical or mental health or well-being,
- you can appeal against the decision to give it to a qualified person rather than to you directly, but what that person tells you or shows you is a matter for his or her judgement.
If you disagree with our decision
When the ARC writes to you and informs you of its decision to allow/disallow or allow partial access to a document we will also send you information about your rights to appeal or review a decision.
You can appeal against decisions:
- not letting you see what you want, when you want it, or in the form you want it
- relating to remission of an application fee
- imposing a charge to see what you want
- in respect of the amount of the charge imposed upon you
- refusing to change or annotate documents about you which you think are incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading
- letting others see documents which you say would unreasonably disclose:
- your personal information
- your lawful business or professional affairs
- lawful business, commercial or financial affairs of your firm.
- to give you access to documents about your physical or mental health through a qualified person and not directly to you.
A third party who disagrees with our decision to give you documents that contain information about them can also ask for our decision to be reviewed.
What kinds of appeal do you have?
You can:
- require the ARC to reconsider its decision ('internal review')
- seek an independent review of the decision by the Australian Information Commissioner
- complain to the Commonwealth Ombudsman about the ARC's decision or action
- seek an independent review of the decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Internal review
You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review. An internal review will be conducted by another officer in our agency. We will advise you of our new decision within 30 days of receiving your request.
Australian Information Commissioner review
You can ask the Australian Information Commissioner to review our original decision or our decision on internal review within 60 days of the date of decision (or 30 days after you are notified if you are an affected third party). The Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision or substitute a new decision. The Information Commissioner may decide not to conduct a review in certain circumstances. More information is available at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) website at www.oaic.gov.au.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request, you can complain to the Australian Information Commissioner who may investigate our actions. More information is available on the OAIC’s website at www.oaic.gov.au.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman can also investigate complaints about our actions. However, the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner will consult to avoid the same matter being investigated twice.
More information
If you require assistance with your request, please contact the FOI Contact Officer by emailing foi@arc.gov.au or calling (02) 6287 6622.
Certain documents that we have released under the FOI Act can be obtained at our Freedom of Information Disclosure Log page. You can also find more information about the Scheme at our Information Publication Scheme page.