Annual Report 2005-2006 - Waverley Council

Waverley Council
Meeting Our Statutory Requirements
Freedom of Information (continued)
Primarily requests for information related to property matters and information around potential public
liability matters.
Internal reviews were requested in relation to five FOI matters dealt with by Waverley Council during
this period. The applicant for the five matters also complained to the State Records Office in relation
to records keeping practices in relation to these five matters.
Fees received for FOI applications totalled $ $1530 compared with $718 received in the previous year.
FOI requests are generally processed within 21 days, except when the information is difficult to locate,
or where third party consultation is necessary. Our average processing time for applications in
2005/2006 was 18. 4 days. Our average processing time was adversely impacted by a small number
of applications that took up to 40 days to finalise.
Impact of FOI on Council’s Activities.
Access to information in local government under Freedom of Information is made complex because of
the interaction between Section 12 of the Local Government Act, the Privacy and Personal Information
Protection Act and the FOI Act.
As far as possible we use the provisions of the model Privacy Management Plan developed by the
Department of Local Government to guide decisions about access to personal information. 2004/2005
has seen a continued substantial reduction in the number of requests to obtain copies of objections to
development applications because of revised notification letters and procedures.
There is an increasing trend to use FOI to obtain information for court matters or to obtain copies of
complaints. Council has a general policy of not providing copies of complaints.
Amounts of Rates and Charges Written Off During the Year
(Local Government [Rates and Regulations] 1993)
An amount of $760,798.81 was written off as rates and charges during 2005/2006. This included
mandatory rebates of $658,020.74 (Section 575) and general rates and charges abandonment of
$3,952.09 (Section 595). In addition, a further abandonment of $8,825.98 was made in 2005/2006 in
accordance with a Council resolution of 8 September 1998.
Our debt recovery policy includes issuing Rate and Instalment Notices in accordance with the
requirements of the Local Government Act. A Reminder Notice will be directed on any account with
an unpaid balance after the final day for payment of the quarterly rate instalment. If the account, other
than one held by an eligible pensioner, is still not finalised after the issue of the Reminder Notice a
Notice of Overdue Account is sent.
Accounts with an unpaid balance, where no mutually agreed arrangement has been negotiated, are
referred to the Council’s debt recovery agency. The debt recovery agency issues a Notice of Legal
Action and if the account remains unpaid a Statement of Liquidated Claim is sought.
For the 2005/2006 financial year, Council spent $21,355.30 on legal and professional costs associated
with debt recovery of rates and charges.
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