The Town of Qualicum Beach is experiencing such an “astronomical” jump in the number of freedom of information requests that at times, some senior staff work on nothing else, according to its chief administrative officer.
In the past 18 months, city hall has received what Daniel Sailland describes as an “incredible spike” in such requests that has kept key staff handling FOI requests busy full-time, and has led to staff often working overtime.
“We just aren’t equipped for the volume,” he told council members representing the waterfront community of close to 9,000.
Not only has the number of requests increased, municipal responses are sometimes appealed, leading to more work, Sailland said.
Administration staff are watching to see if the higher volume becomes the new norm, he said.
Heather Svensen, Qualicum Beach’s corporate administrator, said she has never seen anything like it in her 17 years with the municipality. Appeals require the town to go through additional documents, she said, adding: “We are talking thousands and thousands of pages” in the past year and a half.
Staff juggle workloads and shift priorities because freedom of information requests have a 30-day deadline, Svensen said.
Extensions have been granted by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of B.C., she said.
“I will say it settled down in the last little while, so hopefully we are on a better trajectory for the next little bit.”
The most recent number of requests was not immediately available on Tuesday because staff are busy with an upcoming byelection to fill the seat left vacant by former councillor Adam Palmer, who was elected MLA for Parksville-Qualicum in the 2020 provincial election. Advance polling starts Wednesday, followed by another opportunity on May 12. The main voting day is May 15.
According to its annual reports, Qualicum Beach saw 67 freedom of information requests in 2019, 57 in 2018 and 52 in 2017.
Names of the applicants are confidential and are not provided to council, Svensen said.
She suggested that a planned new communications contractor could help educate the public on how to write such requests. When a broad request is made, staff will contact applicants to see if it is possible to streamline it, but some choose not to do so and want every piece of paper, including emails, reports and letters, she said.
Coun. Scott Harrison said he suspects the requests are being submitted by a small group. “What better way to make sure administration can’t do its work?”
Sailland said the town is “dangerously close” to devoting the equivalent of a full-time position to answering the requests. A standard full-time position with the town, including benefits, ranges from $75,000 to $115,000 annually.
Coun. Robert Filmer said there is nothing wrong with submitting an freedom of information request, noting some members of the current council have submitted their own such requests.
Qualicum Beach is not alone. Nanaimo was swamped in 2018 with 420 FOI requests, up from 229 in 2017, and said staff were devoting large amounts of time to the applications.
At the time, Nanaimo city hall was known for infighting among council members and some senior staff.
Early this year, Nanaimo failed to win approval from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner to disregard current FOI requests and limit future ones from a former staffer who filed a complaint against the city with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
