Mr. Chairman, what I do see from the statistics from 2002 is that the percentage of requests responded to within 30 days was 69% in 2002. What we have seen steadily over the years since 2002 is that there's no specific larger gap or larger change, except that steadily since 2002 the number has come down, to 57%. So we have had a decrease of 12% in the number of requests responded to within 30 days and I do have concerns about that in terms of performance.
The other factor that I think is a focus of the report is the extension factor and whether or not the extensions are taken appropriately under the legislation. If you look at the same statistics from 2002 to now, you will see that they're only disaggregated between those below 30 days and those above 30 days. Those are strictly the extensions that are taken, which are a large focus of the report cards.
What we see is that the amount of extensions that are for more than 30 days, for a search through a large volume of records, which is one of the exemptions that can be taken, has gone from 58% to 70% year over year since 2002. Again, it's a steady increase of time. For consultations, they've gone from 40% in 2002 for the ones that are for more than 30 days to 81% in this past year. There has been an increase of over 40% in terms of consultations. Similarly, third-party consultations have gone up by 10%.
This is really where the delays are occurring. Furthermore, as I stated in the report, this generates almost half of the volume of complaints—