The report comments that -
Four in five public service employees agreed that Right to Information and Information Privacy reforms have had a positive impact on their agency and that their agency has a culture open to the release of information.presumably 80% or more agree that motherhood and observation of the speed limit is a good thing.
The OIC indicates that -
• Four in five public service employees agreed that Right to Information and Information Privacy reforms have had a positive impact on their agency and that their agency has a culture open to the release of information.What does that mean? The OIC argues that -
• Over three quarters agreed that the agency now publishes information as a matter of course and has employed new strategies, particularly new technologies, to make information publicly available.
• Public servants believed the reforms had been well implemented, but more work was needed. Senior public servants were more conscious of the implementation effort than front line staff.
• Public service employees in two regional areas, Wide Bay Burnett and Fitzroy, expressed less positive views than other regions of Queensland.
• Just over half the public servants acknowledged training had been conducted and was effective, but thought that more training within agencies was needed to explain how the reforms apply to their day to day work.
The responses to the survey indicate that agencies have made a good start on the reforms and public servants are committed to the principles behind the reform process. The positive attitude expressed by public servants in general in this survey is encouraging for the success of these ongoing implementation efforts. The results of this survey are expected to inform agency and OIC programs.It goes on to acknowledge that -
The results provide a useful snapshot of public servants’ views as to the current state of the reforms across a range of government agencies. A third of people contacted for the survey (33%) responded (of 8,658 participants invited 2,840 responded). 368 respondents provided comments and 22 common topics were identified in these comments. Public sector employees were presented with 20 RTI/IP related statements that they were invited to agree or disagree with, or indicate that they did not know how to answer. The first 15 were positively-worded statements while the final 5 conveyed a negative thought or idea. The mixture of positive and negative comments guarded against rote answers.
A high proportion of respondents answered 'don’t know' to a range of survey questions. Across the 20 questions this proportion ranged from 23.1% to 51.2%. Results quoted in this report are given for those respondents that answered a question (that is, excluding those that answered 'Don’t know') unless specifically noted.
