NDIA Accountability Project

This project is in DRAFT

NDIS — FOI 24/25-2144: Notification of Decision

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Freedom of Information request — Request consultation process

Thank you for your correspondence of 31 May 2025, in which you requested access under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) to documents held by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).

Scope of your request

You have requested access to the following documents:

* **Internal Briefings, Rogers’s Reports and Documentation**
    - Any internal briefing papers, presentations, reports, or executive summaries relating to:
        * The NDIS PACE system implementation
        * The “Point of Support” claims processing
        * Any documents relating to eInvoicing pilot programs, the c-pos program and PACE procurement.
  Date range: 1 January 2019 to the date of this request.
* **Costs and Expenditure**
    - Documents outlining:
        * Budgets, expenditures, or financial reports associated with the implementation or trial of the PACE system, Point of Support claims, and Einvoicing mechanisms
        * Any procurement contracts, service agreements, or invoices issued to external vendors relating to these systems or pilots.
  Date range: 1 January 2018 to the date of this request.
* **Correspondence involving Alex Stewart or Andrew Colvin**
    - Any correspondence, meeting notes, or memos:
        * To, from or mentioning either Alex Stewart, Garth O’Brien or Andrew Colvin relating to technical errors, system concerns, or operational issues associated with the PACE program 3P, C-pos or any other system-related changes within the NDIS to senior government officials internal and external
  This includes (but is not limited to):
    * Discussions of technical faults
    * Issues affecting participants or providers
  • Escalated complaints or concerns received internally or from external stakeholders.
  • Date range: 1 January 2022 to the date of this request.

Practical refusal

I am authorised to make decisions under section 23(1) of the FOI Act.

I am writing to advise that I intend to refuse your request under section 24AA of the FOI Act. This section relevantly provides:

(1) For the purposes of section 24, a practical refusal reason exists in relation to a request for a document if either (or both) of the following applies:
    (a) the work involved in processing the request:
        (i) In the case of an agency – would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the agency from its other operations; ..
        (ii) …

    (b) the request does not satisfy the requirements in paragraph 15(2)(b) (identification of documents).

Section 15(2)(b) provides that a request under the FOI Act must provide such information concerning the document as is reasonably necessary to enable a responsible officer of the agency to identify it.

I intend to refuse your request on the basis of both subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b) of section 24AA. However, before I make a final decision, I am writing to provide you with an opportunity to revise your request. This is called a ‘request consultation process’ as set out in section 24AB of the FOI Act. You have 14 days to respond to this notice in one of the ways set out below.

Why I intend to refuse your request

Section 24(1)(b):

Part 3 of your request is not clear to me. It is headed “Correspondence involving Alex Stewart or Andrew Colvin” (my emphasis), which suggests you are seeking correspondence to or from either of those persons. However, the request then broadens from “correspondence” to “correspondence, meeting notes, or memos”, which suggests you are seeking correspondence, meeting notes, or memos about as well as involving the named persons.

You then broaden this part of the request again stating that you are seeking “Any correspondence, meeting notes, or memos to, from, or mentioning either Alex Stewart, Garth O’Brien or Andrew Colvin relating to technical errors, system concerns, or operational issues associated with the PACE program 3P, C-pos or any other system-related changes within the NDIS to senior government officials internal and external”. Rather than particularising Part 3 of the request, this paragraph suggests you are seeking access to correspondence, meeting notes and memos created between 1 January 2022 and 31 May 2025, that: • are from Alex Stewart to senior government officials (both within and outside the NDIS) that are about technical errors, system concerns or operational issues associated with the PACE program, C-pos or any other system-related changes within the NDIS • are to Alex Stewart from senior government officials within that date range about those topics

  • mention Alex Stewart
  • are from Garth O’Brien to senior government officials (both within and outside the NDIS) that are about technical errors, system concerns or operational issues associated with the PACE program, C-pos or any other system-related changes within the NDIS
  • are to Garth O’Brien from senior government officials within that date range about those topics
  • mention Garth O’Brien
  • are from Andrew Colvin to senior government officials (both within and outside the NDIS) that are about technical errors, system concerns or operational issues associated with the PACE program, C-pos or any other system-related changes within the NDIS
  • are to Andrew Colvin from senior government officials within that date range about those topics
  • mention Andrew Colvin. On 19 August 2025, I initiated preliminary consultations with several NDIA business areas to seek their views about whether your request could be processed in its current form. Advice from the Executive Officer to the General Manager, Technology Services Division, was that the scope of the request was not clear enough to run searches to identify documents. On 1 September 2025, I emailed you foreshadowing that a request consultation process would be necessary. I informed you that I had received advice from the Branch Manager, Procurement, that the scope of your request was insufficiently clear to enable the team to search for documents. In particular, clarification would be required about the terms “procurement contracts, service agreements, or invoices issued to external vendors”; there were various projects and procurements undertaken that could be considered as relating to e-invoicing, C-POS and PACE. In view of the terms of the request and the advice referred to, I am not satisfied that Part 3 of the request provides such information concerning the documents you are seeking to enable such documents to be identified and retrieved. Section 24(1)(a):

In my email of 1 September 2025, I informed you that I had asked NDIA’s Cyber Security and Resilience Branch to search the Agency’s data storage system for emails falling within the scope of Part 3 of your request. I made that request to enable me to understand how many documents would fall within the scope of that part of your request. Advice from Cyber Security was that they were unable to search the system without relevant email addresses of both the sender and recipient. It was also observed that both Alex Stewart and Garth O’Brien were formerly employed as NDIA General Managers. Even if searches for emails were able to be carried out, the number of emails from, to or mentioning them that concern system-related changes within the NDIA over a 2.5 year would be unmanageable. Neither Alex Stuart nor Garth O’Brien are currently employed by the Agency. It is not therefore possible to obtain guidance from them as to documents that might fall within scope of Part 3. I understand that Andrew Colvin was never employed by the Agency. The NDIA began to design and build PACE in June 2021. User acceptance testing began in June 2022 with formal staff consultation undertaken in September that year. Real time

Request consultation process

You now have an opportunity to revise your request to enable it to proceed.

You may wish to consider:

  • confining the scope of your request to a single project or procurement entered into by the NDIA
  • confining the scope to a particular type of document e.g. internal presentations about the implementation of PACE
  • narrowing the date range of your request
  • more clearly articulating the documents you seek access to e.g. briefings prepared for the NDIA’s CEO regarding a particular topic.

You have 14 days from the date you receive this letter to contact me and do one of the following: a. withdraw your request b. make a revised request c. indicate that you do not wish to revise the request.

During this period, you are welcome to seek assistance to revise your request. If you revise your request in a way that adequately addresses the practical refusal reason outlined above, we will recommence processing it. If you would like to discuss the request, please provide me with your best number and some suitable dates and times during which I can call you.

You can contact me by email at foi@ndis.gov.au.

If you do not contact me within this period, that is by 24 October 2025, I will make a decision on the current scope of your request, which may be to refuse to deal with it any further.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Yours sincerely

Helen [HIL533] Senior Freedom of Information Officer Information Release, Privacy and Legal Operations Branch Reviews and Information Release Division