[LINK] FOI denied: $1mil charge to restore backup

Frank O'Connor francisoconnor3 at bigpond.com
Thu Sep 20 15:06:26 AEST 2012


Unbelievable!

So, the government's 'world's best practice' IT contractor, to whom they are paying squillions of questionably assigned taxpayer dollars for even more questionable performance, doesn't have the IT skills/nouse/capacity/systems to trace and audit it's own backups of internal data processing systems and provide data which would help monitor and assess its performance, quality, accountability and cost-benefit ...

When I come back in another life, I want to be a Victorian government IT contractor.

Either that or a Victorian Government VCAT president.

Either way I wouldn't have to do much to be remunerated with princely sums, lack of accountability and responsibility, and all manner of obfuscation mechanisms to disguise my lack of performance.
---
On 20/09/2012, at 1:11 PM, Jan Whitaker <jwhit at janwhitaker.com> wrote:

> [this is just funny; 
> http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/government-it/age-defeated-over-1m-foi-request-20120919-2672p.html 
> ]
> 
> 
> Age defeated over '$1m' FOI request
> 
> Melissa Fyfe
> Published: September 20, 2012 - 3:00AM
> 
> The Age has lost a freedom of information battle against a state 
> government body that claimed it would take 24 years and cost nearly 
> $1 million to process two requests.
> 
> The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has accepted the 
> evidence of CenITex, the government's centre for information 
> technology excellence, that The Age's FOI requests would divert ''a 
> substantial and unreasonable portion'' of CenITex's resources away 
> from its other operations.
> 
> VCAT deputy president Heather Lambrick found CenITex 
> <http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/24-years-1m-cost-for-foi-request-20120819-24git.html?rand=1348098779445>had 
> not exaggerated the estimate of time and resources but she questioned 
> several aspects of its response.
> 
> CenITex had said it would have to restore all emails within the time 
> frame of the requests, which related to complaints about CenITex 
> contractors, the electronic diaries of key executives, customer 
> feedback results and CenITex's gift and hospitality register.
> 
> To restore the emails, the agency said it had to buy extra computer 
> equipment. CenITex's position is unusual in the Victorian government 
> - most departments and agencies have easily searchable email archives 
> and do not require an expensive restoration of archives to meet FOI requests.
> 
> Ms Lambrick said she found it ''surprising'' that the government's 
> centre for information and technology excellence ''would not have the 
> sufficient equipment for this request to be processed''. CenITex's 
> estimate of one hour to restore each encrypted email was, she said, 
> ''staggering''.
> 
> She said The Age had never accepted CenITex's explanations for why it 
> considered the scope of the request too large and had ''preferred to 
> adopt a cynical approach expressing disbelief and incredulity''.
> 
> 
> 
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
> blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
> business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
> 
> Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
> sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
> ~Madeline L'Engle, writer
> 
> _ __________________ _
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link





More information about the Link mailing list