2008-2009 3. Investigating complaints

A core activity of our mandate is to review the complaints of individuals and organizations who believe that federal institutions have not complied with their access to information obligations. As explained in the previous chapter, we streamlined our investigative process in 2008–2009 to increase efficiency and timeliness. A key priority was to reduce cases accumulated prior to April 1, 2008 and to prevent the recurrence of large inventories in the future.

The charts and figures in this chapter set out our complaints caseload for 2008–2009 from three perspectives: the complaints we registered, the work we did to process them and the outcomes of our investigations. They also illustrate how our new investigative process, which was fully implemented in mid-November 2008, has contributed to substantially reducing our pre-April 1, 2008 inventory.

In addition, while working toward decreasing our turnaround times, we introduced changes in our intake procedures to reduce any unnecessary delays and allow our investigators to concentrate on investigations without being distracted by administrative functions. We also notify all parties earlier in the process, which gives institutions an opportunity to begin addressing the complainant’s issues at an earlier stage.