Government Information Public Access (GIPA) Solution
Business Challenge
You're a busy NSW Right to Information and Privacy Practitioner trying to get more done with fewer resources. You're struggling to:
- Stay on top of the different time-frames that exist under the GIPA Act across the many access applications you have afoot
- See which GIPA applications are due and when
- Remember who in the business is chasing up the documents relevant to the access application you're processing and when they said they'd get back to you
- Keep a proper audit trail of the different access applications you're working on
- Find where an access application is up to in amongst the other work you're doing
- Find time to draft the same responses to applicants in amongst the other work you're required to do
- Find the time to generate the annual external reports required by the Information and Privacy Commission
- Provide ad hoc reports to your internal stakeholders at short notice
- Manage and track the GIPA applications that are under dispute in court or NCAT
Your agency is exploring solutions to help you track, manage and automate more aspects of the GIPA function so that you can focus on higher value activities.
Our Solution
GLiNTECH has developed a packaged automation solution that helps NSW agencies track, manage, process and report on access applications received under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA Act) and other legislation. It offers users advanced workflow management, document automation, email reminders, reporting functionality and other features to help automate the management of GIPA access applications.
Access Applications
Manage multiple deadlines
Processing access applications often involves managing multiple deadlines and time frames prescribed under the GIPA Act. Dash automatically calculates due dates prescribed under the GIPA Act for each sub-tasks and allows different end users to track, manage and process interrelated sub-tasks, independently. Never worry about when you need to issue a decision, advance deposit request or consultation letter again.
Dashboards
Display real time data on outstanding access applications using fully customisable dashboards. Individual users can track what matters to them, their team and your stakeholders, live, all in one place. Don't waste time trawling through your GIPA inbox or MS Outlook calendar everyday to figure out where an application is at in its lifecyle and what needs to be actioned.
Pro tip
Issue Statistics show you how much work your team members are doing and help you manage team utilisation and resource planning.
Templates
Enter information about the GIPA application once and use it to populate standard responses, including acknowledgement letters, notice of processing charges and access application decision letters to reduce the time spent processing access applications. Document automation helps your team eliminate inefficiencies, improve compliance, and save time on drafting.
Triage and Assign
Access applications lodged with a NSW agency by e-mail can automatically generate tasks in Dash which can be triaged and assigned to the relevant assignees within the agency. Assigning tasks is simple and allows agencies to track outstanding tasks to help ensure that external and internal deadlines are met. Having a short triage list ensures that applications don't fall through the cracks, causing you to miss a statutory deadline.
Controlled Access
Assign specific access permissions for each access application to ensure that sensitive requests can only be viewed by end users with the appropriate authority and permission. Never worry about the wrong people stumbling onto sensitive applications like those relating to former or current staff complaints again.
External Reporting
Export data about access applications for external reporting in a form consistent with the requirements prescribed by the Information and Privacy Commission in NSW, to common formats such as Microsoft Word. Whilst MS Excel is great for some things, it's not great for your annual GIPA reporting, lacking audit trails and capabilities to cross check your figures. The reports you produce using our solution allow you to quickly link back to each access application through a click of a button, allowing you to see which considerations were considered and more.
Internal Reports
Generate customisable internal reports for senior stakeholders. Never worry about receiving unusual requests for GIPA data at short notice again. Our solution will let you easily search for anything and everything related to GIPA applications with a few clicks. With an open API, users can also generate other internal reports using third party products such as Tableau.
Resource Management
A dynamic issues calendar allows end users to effectively identify upcoming due dates, providing enhanced visibility for information access teams who process a high number of access applications. Identify bottlenecks and resourcing constraints early so that you don't get overstretched with too many deadlines falling due at the same time.
Central Repository
Upload all of your files into one place for ease of searching and use. Using our solution, users can upload multiple file types, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook files and PDFs, whose contents can then be searched using advanced search queries. Don't waste time navigating through shared drives, emails and other document repositories again.
Ready to get started?
Want to know how your organisation can deploy this solution? Want to know how we've helped other organisations like yours?
Get in touch for more information.