Fax                : 2882 8149
Tel                 : 2629 0428
Our Ref        : L/M (2e) to OMB/G/16/03 III
Subject        : Request for Information – Chinese version of the full
Direct Investigation Report of “Effectiveness of Administration Code on
Access to Information “ (OMB/DI/189)
Dear stranbusel,

                We refer to your email of 26 October 2015 requesting the
full report in   both Chinese and English of the captioned Direct
Investigation (“DI”).  In addition, you ask for the reason(s) why the
Office did not provide a Chinese version of the DI reports released in and
before the year 2010/11.

2.                Regarding the captioned DI, only a report in English
supplemented by an Executive Summary in both Chinese and English is
available and the documents can be found at our website:
        [1]http://ofomb.ombudsman.hk/abc/en-us/dire...
[2]http://ofomb.ombudsman.hk/abc/zh-hk/dire...

3.                In conducting DIs, one of the working languages (either
Chinese or English) is chosen to facilitate investigation.  To ensure
efficient use of our resources, a DI report is normally produced in one
language.  For public announcement of the findings of the DI, we normally
publish a summary of the DI report in both Chinese and English, which is
usually widely covered in the Chinese and English media for public
information.  The arrangement has been working very well.  

4.        Since 2002/03, such summaries have also been published on our
website.  

5.        You will note that the full reports are also available on our
website.  However, they are in fact not meant to be public documents for
general release.  They are there just in case some individuals may wish to
research further into the subjects.  Hence, it is not considered necessary
to present the reports in both languages.

Yours sincerely,

( Kathleen Chan )
for The Ombudsman

From:        stranbusel <[FOI #53 email]>
To:        FOI requests at Office of The Ombudsman <[Office of The Ombudsman request email]>,
Date:        26/10/2015 05:55
Subject:        Freedom of Information request - Chinese Version of the
Full Direct Investigation Report of "Effectiveness of Administration of
Code on Access to Information" (OMB/DI/189)

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Dear Office of The Ombudsman,

I have been looking for the information about the Direct Investigations
(DIs) related to the Code on Access to Information. In the year 2009/10,
the Office of The Ombudsman ("the Office") has conducted a DI titled "政府
推行《公開資料守則》的成效" (Chinese) and "Effectiveness of Administration
of Code on Access to Information" (English), with the case reference
number of OMB/DI/189. However, the Chinese version of this DI report is
not available on the website of the Office.

1. I would therefore like to request, under the Code on Access to
Information, the full DI report in both Chinese and English of the
aforementioned investigation.

I further notice that, before the year 2010/11 (inclusive), none of the
full DI reports have the Chinese version. The Office provides on its
website (i) the summaries of the DI reports in Chinese and English, and
(ii) the full DI report in English only.

The Government's (official) language policy states that all materials
available for the general public should be bilingual unless the
circumstance is "exceptional". Sarcastically, the Office has even
conducted a Direct Investigation "The Use of Bilingual Information
Materials" (OMB/DI/124) into the implementation of the official language
policy of government bureaux, departments and public authorities, while
the Office itself has not been following the exact same policy.

The DIs conducted by the Office clearly represent the public interest and
therefore the public should have the access to both Chinese and English
versions of the full investigation reports. In addition, there exists a
"Translation Section" under the Office's structure and hence the
translation would not introduce extra operational burden to the Office's
investigation manpower.

2. With the above, I would like to request, also under the Code on Access
to Information, the reason(s) that the Office does not provide the Chinese
version of the DI reports released before the year 2010/11 (inclusive).

I am looking forward to your early reply. Thank you very much.

Yours faithfully,
stranbusel

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