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6/1989 Making & Reviewing Decisions

Document

Central Office Instruction

Instruction No. 6

Date of Effect: On receipt

File No. A89/97

Contact: Will Allan

MAKING AND REVIEW OF DECISIONS

The purpose of this Instruction is to advise of the inclusion in the General Orders, as a new chapter, of the guidelines on the making and review of decisions under the Defence Service Homes Act contained in Central Office Instruction No. 2 of 31 March 1989. Extracts of Attachment A to that Instruction (the example section 37 statement) are now included as new Appendix G to the General Orders while Attachment B (State Addresses of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal) is included as new Appendix H.

Certain refinements have been made to the instructions in light of our experience to date of the new appeal arrangements. In particular, I draw your attention to the following matters concerning the preparation and provision of statements of reasons:

  • the statement of reasons must be a comprehensive statement of all the reasons for the decision
  • if assistance is being refused, all those legislative and policy provisions which are relevant to the case and which the person has failed to satisfy must be stated;
  • if there are other provisions which, if satisfied, would allow the assistance to be provided, but are not relevant to the particular circumstances of the case, it may be appropriate to refer briefly to the lack of any basis for allowing assistance under those other provisions;
  • the legislative and policy provisions applied in making the decision must be identified by the relevant section or part numbers and be described, quoted or paraphrased in sufficient detail for their requirements to be clear to the applicant
  •      it is not sufficient to simply state that the relevant provisions have not been satisfied; the reasons they are not satisfied must be stated;
  • the signature to the statement of reasons must be made by the decision-maker as the delegate of the authority (the Secretary or the Minister) with the relevant decision-making power under the Act; and
  • the letter advising of the decision should state what decision has been made and may explain it in general terms but should not take the place of the statement of reasons which must be attached as a separate document.

R. J. Bernau
for GENERAL MANAGER

16 August 1989