THE ACT Ombudsman has been asked to review a “baffling” decision by ACT Health to heavily redact a Freedom of Information request for a staff survey of its Digital Solutions Division (DSD).

Liberal health spokesperson Leanne Castley says of the parts of the final report released to her under FOI all negative discussion has been redacted, whereas positive comments have been released.

“The starkest example is a section on ‘Identified strengths’, which has been released almost in full, whereas ‘Specific areas of concern’ is heavily redacted,” Castley says.

The recent staff survey of DSD, which is implementing the Digital Health Record (DHR), comprised an online survey completed by 99 of the Division’s 388 staff, individual interviews and three focus groups.

Castley says that despite the released pages stating no fewer than five times that responses were anonymised, unattributed and de-identified, ACT Health claims that to release answers and verbatim comments would unreasonably disclose participants’ “personal information”, which would then “reduce engagement” and “diminish… honest and truthful participation”.

“ACT Health is even going so far as to claim that its paramount duty is to ‘protect staff from experiencing stress and anxiety in anticipating uncertainty in this circumstance’, which ‘could… negatively impact on the wider directorate’.” Castley says.

“This is puzzling enough, given all survey responses were anonymised, but bizarrely, in a section on ‘Free Text Survey Responses’, five positive verbatim comments are disclosed, while apparently critical responses are redacted.

“Full disclosure would promote discussion of public affairs, enhance accountability, contribute to informed debate and assist inquiry into deficiencies in the administration of DSD.

“Releasing only positive commentary and not the negative erodes confidence and potentially decreases future participation in the survey because staff could feel their feedback had been disregarded.

“The redaction of negative commentary goes directly against the [health] minister’s comments last week when speaking about the DHR that she is committed to providing as much information as possible to ensure transparency.”