Digitization may help speed up parts of the requests, and if you're able to digitize and store records so that individuals no longer need to provide them themselves....
Again, the process is that you make a request and it goes to the corporate secretary in the ATIP team. They figure out where it needs to go. They blast it out, and then individual record holders are supposed to search their emails and provide search terms. I know this because I've included my name in one of my own requests to see how that process unravels. They ask what search terms you entered. When you're looking for, as a public example, Mark Norman, but you've never used Mark Norman's name in an email, Mark Norman's emails or emails related to Mark Norman are not going to come up in that response.
As one possible solution to part of the problem, if the department tracks what terms are searched and who is solicited for a response, could we not make that available to requesters, to provide their own degree of accountability and oversight? All of the documents that I've requested in my case and the cases of the related issues you've heard today were requested as a double-check. I requested a copy of the police report to see who was interviewed as a witness, and they didn't interview the commanding officer who was present at the time. That's an example of how you need to request these records so you can hold the system accountable. It's the same as when you get your grades back in a school assignment. You might want to check your teacher's math because we're human and we make mistakes.