In information professions, there's a term called “description”. It's also called “metadata”. These are technical terms for information that describes information in complex information systems. A major function of “description” or “metadata” is to make it easier for people to find that information, and be very specific. Currently, paragraph 5(1)(b) of the Access to Information Act requires governments to publish a description of all classes of records under the control of each government institution.
Unfortunately, I think it's at a very abstract level. It appears in what is called Info Source. What the government is currently publishing are descriptions of program alignment architecture, which are an important part of the puzzle, but an incomplete part.
I would encourage Parliament to dramatically expand paragraph 5(1)(b) to include the mandatory publishing of record retention schedules. These are documents that describe what the government has, including record classification schemes, organizational charts, job descriptions of all employees in the department, as well as user guides for all software applications used within the departments. These are all tools that describe how information is organized within an organization, and they are critical to identifying what information a person very specifically wants.
I think the better able we are to describe that information, the better it is for users, who will then be able to be very specific in what they're seeking and not have these very broad fishing expeditions where they don't know what they're looking for.
That's what I would recommend.