How to lodge a complaint about the actions of NSW government agencies in regard to an Information Act

Under the Government Information (Information Commissioner) Act 2009 NSW (GIIC Act) any person may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner about the action or inaction of a NSW government agency in exercising the agency’s functions under an Information Act.

A complaint about the actions of an agency is different to requesting a review. A complaint will generally be about the way in which an agency carried out its functions under the law, and not with regard to a particular refusal of request for information. If you want to request a review of a decision about an access application (also known as a formal application), please see Reviews by the Information Commissioner. 

What conduct can I complain about?

You can complain about the way in which an agency carried out its functions under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 NSW (GIPA Act). For example, a complaint could be about:

• the availability of an agency’s open access information
• an agency’s response to an informal request for information
• the content of an agency’s publication guide
• an agency’s policies and procedures about access to information
• the time taken by an agency to respond to a request for information
• how an agency makes information available for example audio visual information
• an agency or person acting in a way that may indicate that an offence has been committed under the GIPA Act.

In general you cannot make a complaint about an agency’s decision to:

• refuse to give you access to information
• refuse to deal with your application
• refuse to confirm or deny that information is held by the agency.

For more information about how to make a complaint about the actions of an agency, including links to our 'Complaint about an agency' form see our fact sheet Complaints about the actions of agencies.