The Cabinet Office agency information guide

The agency information guide outlines The Cabinet Office's structure and function, as well as what information they hold and how citizens can access it.

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Our structure and functions

The Cabinet Office (TCO) is a key department within the NSW public service. TCO's primary responsibility is to serve and advise key NSW Government officials in delivering their commitments and priorities.

TCO supports:

  • the Premier
  • the Special Minister of State

TCO plays a vital role in supporting these key government officials and their teams by:

  • driving effective Cabinet decision making by ensuring that matters submitted for consideration are submitted in the right way, at the right time, in line with government priorities and are of the highest quality
  • providing expert and independent policy and legal advice to the Premier and Cabinet, including National Cabinet in relation to State and Commonwealth issues
  • providing final review and advice to the Premier on all proposals coming to Cabinet from agencies to ensure alignment to government priorities
  • identifying whole of government priorities and ensures alignment across all portfolios
  • working with the Premier’s Department and Treasury to ensure that proposals for Cabinet are fully developed 
  • providing governance and legal services to both agencies
  • coordinating policies and services across government
  • managing the passage of government legislation
  • working with the federal government and other state and territory governments on national reforms
  • supporting the machinery of government.

What kind of government information do we have?

Information is contained in the following records held by The Cabinet Office:

  • policy documents including Memoranda and Circulars
  • documents on internal administration of the department
  • documents concerning appointments to various official positions
  • policy and planning documents.

In addition, the department also maintains the following categories of records:

  • official records of Cabinet and Cabinet Committees, including:
    • documents prepared for submission to Cabinet and Cabinet Committees
    • deliberations or decisions of Cabinet and Cabinet Committees.
  • documents prepared for submission to the Executive Council
  • deliberations or advice of the Executive Council
  • Premier's and Minister's briefing papers
  • correspondence with the Commonwealth
  • correspondence with the other states and territories
  • correspondence with members of the public
  • correspondence with Ministers and other Members of Parliament
  • internal working papers of the department
  • correspondence with the Parliament and committees of the Houses of Parliament.

What kind of government information is available to the public, and how?

Open access information

The department makes available, free of charge on this website, the following “open access information”:

Other proactively released information

In addition, the department pro-actively makes available, free of charge on this website, a large range of additional information, including the following:

Information available on informal request

A request may be made at any time for other information held by the department. While the department reserves the right to require a formal access application to be made under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (the GIPA Act), the department will generally provide the following types of information in response to an informal request without the need to make a formal access application:

  • copies of correspondence, where the person requesting the correspondence was the person who sent it to the department
  • documents that contain only personal information about a particular individual, and that is the person who is requesting the information
  • documents that have already been made public in some other way
  • other reasonable requests for information the release of which would not raise any potential concerns in terms of public interest considerations against disclosure.

The department reserves the right to impose conditions in relation to the use or disclosure of information that is released in response to an informal request.

Access applications are subject to application fees and processing charges.

Although an access application may be made for all other government information held by the department, the department will not release information if there is an overriding public interest against the disclosure of the information.

Some of the particular information that the department cannot release in response to an access application includes:

  • Cabinet information (as defined in clause 2 of Schedule 1 to the GIPA Act)
  • Executive Council information (as defined in clause 3 of Schedule 1 to the GIPA Act)
  • Documents that are subject to Parliamentary privilege, such as draft answers to Questions on Notice (item 4 of Schedule 1 to the GIPA Act)
  • The Register of Pecuniary Interests, kept under the Ministerial Code of Conduct (item 11 of Schedule 1 to the GIPA Act).

Otherwise, the department will release information in response to a valid access application unless there is an overriding public interest against disclosure.

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