Freedom of Information

The office of the Inspector of Correctional Services (OICS) is an independent statutory authority established by the Inspector of Correctional Services Act 2017. OICS was established to provide independent oversight of ACT correctional and youth justice facilities, focusing on continual improvement and prevention of ill-treatment. The Inspector of Correctional Services provides this oversight through conducting reviews of ACT correctional facilities and services, and reviewing critical incidents.

More information about us is here, and we also have further information about our legal framework here.

Open access scheme

Under the FOI Act, the office of the Inspector of Correctional Services (OICS) must make certain information available through an open access scheme — for example, documents about how we are organised and about our policies.

We hold information about the work we do as an independent oversight body including:

investigation information – including correspondence, background material and analysis
Information about how we perform our role – including policy documents, procedures, guidelines and reports
Information about how we manage the office – including human resources, finance and administration.

In accordance with our Open Access Strategy,[1] we make a range of information publicly available.

These open access publications have been complied in accordance with the ACT FOI Act:

Overview of OICS including who we are and what we do
Organisational chart
Annual Reports – tabled in the Legislative Assembly
Healthy Prison Reports – tabled in the Legislative Assembly
Health Centre Reports - tabled in the Legislative Assembly.
Critical Incident Reports – tabled in the Legislative Assembly
Thematic Reviews – tabled in the Legislative Assembly
OICS Review framework (under review)
OICS Operating Procedure (under review)
MOU with ACT Corrective Services
MOU with Bimberi Youth Justice Centre
Relationship Protocol with other agencies

ACT Standards for Adult Correctional Services
ACT Standards for Youth Detention Places: Interim Version. We have also produced a Summary Version for Young People at Bimberi.

See our FAQ page for more information.

Making an FOI application

If you make an FOI application, it needs to have enough detail in it to understand what information you want. If it does not give us enough details, we must help you to give us those details within a reasonable time. You must also provide us with a postal or an email address so that we can contact you. If you are asking for your personal information, you need to provide us with proof of your identity. If you have done all this, we will let you know in writing within 10 working days that we have received your application and are working on it.

Paying a fee

We can charge a fee for your FOI application, but we must tell you if we are going to do that and give you an estimate. You don’t have to pay a fee to get your own personal information.

Deciding an FOI application

Our information officer will usually have 20 working days from when we get your FOI application to decide about your application. The information officer can take longer if we need to ask someone else about giving you the information — for example, because their personal information is in the document you want. We can also ask you if you agree to us having more time if we need it. We can also sometimes ask the Ombudsman to give us more time.

The information officer can decide that:

we will give you all the information you want
or we do not have the information you want
or we cannot give you the information because it is not in the public interest to do so
or we can refuse to deal with your application
or we can refuse to confirm or deny that we have the information.

If some of the information in a document is not in the public interest to give you, we may be able to give you the rest of the information in that document and block out (redact) the information that is not in the public interest to give you.

Reasons for decision

The information officer must give you reasons in writing for their decision.

Review of decisions

You may be able to ask for the information officer’s decision to be reviewed by the ACT Ombudsman. If you are not satisfied with the Ombudsman’s decision, you may be able to ask the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal to review the decision.

Disputing a decision

You can dispute our decision if:

we decide your application is outside the scope of the Act
we decide to release documents contrary to your views (if you are a consulted party)
you believe we should have taken steps to consult you about the release of documents
we refuse to deal with the application
we decide charges are payable (but not the amount of the charge)
we don’t grant access to the documents either in full or part
the documents don’t exist or can’t be found
we do not process your application within 20 working days.

Disclosure log

We publish decisions about FOI applications on a disclosure log. We do not have to publish decisions about applications for personal information.

Amend personal information held by OICS

If you believe we hold information about you that is incomplete, incorrect or out of date, you can request to have this information amended under the FOI Act.

Send us a written request with the following information:

include enough detail so we can identify the information to be amended
state how it is incomplete, incorrect, out-of-date or misleading
state the amendments considered necessary
include an email or postal address via which we can contact you.

We will process your request within 20 working days. If we decide to refuse your request, we will contact you first and give you the opportunity to comment and/or provide further information. Only then will we make the final decision.

When we have made a decision about your request to amend your personal information, we will send you a letter explaining our decision and your review and appeal rights.

More Information

Ph 1800 93 20 10

ics@act.gov.au

GPO Box 158
Canberra City, ACT 2601