Your Freedom of Information request - Internal Review Decision | FOI release material

Our Reference: IR 21/22-036

                                                        GPO Box 700
                                                                                 Canberra ACT 2601
                                                                            1800 800 110

21 July 2022 ndis.gov.au

Karen

By email: foi+request-8656-bf71e9a7@righttoknow.org.au

Dear Karen

Your Freedom of Information request - Internal Review Decision

Thank you for your correspondence of 20 May 2022, in which you requested an internal review of the Original Decision in relation to your request FOI 21/22-1476, made by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act).

The purpose of this letter is to provide you with a decision on your request for internal review.

Original Decision On 27 March 2022, you requested access under the FOI Act to the following documents:

…the amount of unawarded funds from the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) grants program for financial years 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21 and the total amount of unawarded ILC grant funds transferred to DSS when the ILC grants program moved from the NDIA to DSS.

On 17 May 2022, the NDIA provided you with the Original Decision in relation to your request for information. That decision refused access to Part 2 of your request and did not consider Part 1 of your request due to the documents being publicly available. The links to those publicly available documents were provided to you.

Grounds for review On 20 May 2022, you requested an internal review on the following grounds: I request a review of this decision for the first part of my request ‘Can you please provide the amount of unawarded funds from the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) grants program for financial years 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21’

 My reasons for requesting a review are as follows:

      - I have requested information about unawarded ILC funds and the response appears

to point to public information regarding awarded and allocated funds and does not address unallocated funds.

      - There have been ad-hoc/1 off grants awarded in years following grants rounds

suggesting there are unallocated funds from previous years eg. projects awarded in 2021 from the 2019-20 ICB round

I have interpreted your grounds for review to be in relation to the NDIA’s original decision to advise you that your information was available in public links.

Decision on your request for internal review I am authorised to make decisions under section 23(1) of the FOI Act, as well as internal review decisions under section 54C of that Act. As an internal review officer, I am not bound in any way by the Original Decision and am required to make a fresh decision.

I have reviewed the Original Decision made to not consider Part 1 of your request, and I have decided to affirm the Original Decision.

In making my decision, I have considered the following:

your correspondence in relation to your original request
the Original Decision dated 17 May 2022
your grounds for seeking an internal review of Original Decision
the NDIA’s operating environment and functions
the FOI Act
the FOI Guidelines published under section 93A of the FOI Act
the NDIA’s operating environment and functions.

Reasons for Decision Part 1 of your request states: Can you please provide the amount of unawarded funds from the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) grants program for financial years 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21

I have consulted with the relevant line areas in relation to your request and they have confirmed that the information that is available is in the following public links:

Grant Connect: GrantConnect (grants.gov.au)

Community Grants Hub: Grants | Community Grants Hub

Portfolio Budget Statements: Portfolio Budget Statements 2017-18 - Budget Related Paper No. 1.15A (dss.gov.au)

Annual Report: Annual Report | NDIS

NIDA Annual Report 2020-2021: Page 94 – I have attached this page as Document 1.

NIDA Annual Report 2019-2020: Page 104 – I have attached this page as Document 2.

NIDA Annual Report 2018-2019: Page 81 – I have attached this page as Document 3.

Rights of Review

I have set out your rights to seek a review of my decision at Attachment A.

If you would like to clarify any aspects of my decision, please do not hesitate to contact me via email at foi@ndis.gov.au.

Yours sincerely

Kylie Senior Freedom of Information Officer Parliamentary, Ministerial & FOI Branch Government Division

Attachment A

Your rights of review

External Review by the Australian Information Commissioner

Section 54L of the FOI Act gives you the right to apply directly to the Australian Information Commissioner (AIC) to seek a review of this decision.

If you wish to have the decision reviewed by the OAIC you must apply for the review, in writing or by using the online merits review form available on the AIC’s website at www.oaic.gov.au, within 60 days of receipt of this letter.

To assist the OAIC your application should include a copy of this decision and your contact details. You should also clearly set out why you are objecting to the decision.

You can also complain to the OAIC about how an agency handled an FOI request, or other actions the agency took under the FOI Act.

Applications for review or complaints can be lodged with the OAIC in the following ways:

Online: www.oaic.gov.au
Post: GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001
Fax: +61 2 9284 9666
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au

The OAIC can also be contacted on 1300 363 992.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman

You can complain to the Commonwealth Ombudsman concerning action taken by an agency in the exercise of powers or the performance of functions under the FOI Act.

A complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman may be made orally or in writing. The Ombudsman may be contacted for the cost of a local call from anywhere in Australia on telephone 1300 362 072.