Freedom of Information Request — FOIREQ25/00159

Our reference: FOIREQ25/00159

By email: foitrequest-12951-c84aa72b@righttoknow.org.au

Dear Bob Buckley,

I refer to your request for access to documents made under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (the FOI Act). Your Freedom of Information (FOI) request was received by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) on 21 March 2025. The NDIA transferred the FOI request to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) under s16 of the FOI Act as it believed the request would be most appropriately handled by our agency.

I am writing to inform you of my decision.

I have identified one document as falling within the scope of your request. I have made a decision to grant full access to that document.

In accordance with section 26(1)(a) of the FOI Act, the reasons for my decision and findings on material questions of fact are provided below.

Background

Scope of your request

Your FOI request sought access to the following information:

all information that the NDIS/NDIA provided since January 2021 to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner relating to NDIA’s Freedom of Information operations/performance. I am especially interested in the NDIA’s reporting on its compliance with FOI legislation.

On 15 April 2025, we sent you an email requesting confirmation that you are seeking FOI statistic submissions made to the OAIC by the NDIA across the period January 2021 — 21 March 2025.

1300 363 992 T +61 2 9284 9749 GPO Box 5228 www.oaic.gov.au enquiries@oaic.gov.au F+61 2 9284 9666 Sydney NSW 2001 ABN 85 249 230 937

On 20 April 2025, you replied to our request for confirmation as follows:

I write to confirm that I seek “FOI stats submissions made to the OAIC by the NDIA across the period January 2021 – 21 March 2025” (the being the date on my FoI request and the limit such a request).

Note - if the OAIC publishes precisely the information that the NDIA provides to the OAIC (and I can access it), then what I am requesting is in the public domain and you need not provide it.

Decision

I am an officer authorised under section 23(1) of the FOI Act to make decisions in elation to FOI requests on behalf of the OAIC.

Subject to the following provisions of the FOI Act, I have made a decision to grant full access to one document.

Searches undertaken

The FOI Act requires that all reasonable steps have been taken to locate documents within scope of an FOI request.

In response to your request, the following line area of the OAIC conducted searches for documents relevant to you request:

Data Analytics (Regulatory Intelligence and Strategy Branch)

Searches were conducted across the OAIC’s various document storage systems including:

the OAIC’s case management system - Resolve
the OAIC’s document holding system – Content Manager
OAIC’s email system
general computer files
paper files
FOI Statistics portal.

The following search terms were used when undertaking electronic records searches:

Annual and quarterly statistics data for NDIS/NDIA for January 2021 – 21 March 2025

Creation of a Document in Response to Your FOI Request (Section 17)

Under section 17 of the FOI Act, if an FOI request is made for a document that could be produced by using a computer ordinarily available to the agency for retrieving or collating stored information, an agency is required to deal with the request as if it was a request for written documents to which the FOI Act applies.

A spreadsheet was provided by the line area, containing a raw export of quarterly and annual data from the administrator portal of the OAIC FOI Statistics portal (https://foistats.oaic.gov.au/). Pursuant to section 17 of the FOI Act, this data was converted into a document created for easier readability.

Having consulted with the relevant line area and undertaken a review of the records of the search and retrieval efforts, I am satisfied that a reasonable search has been undertaken in response to your request and that all relevant information has been found.

Reasons for Decision

Material Taken into Account

In making my decision, I have had regard to the following:

your FOI request dated 21 March 2025;
the FOI Act, in particular sections 3, 11, 11A, 15 and 26 of the FOI Act;
the Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under section 93A of the FOI Act to which regard must be had in performing a function or exercising a power under the FOI Act (FOI Guidelines); and
consultation with the relevant line area of the OAIC in relation to your request.

As the NDIA has not submitted the relevant data from December 2024 to 21 March 2025, this information is not yet available. Accordingly, the document does not include this data set.

I have made a decision to grant full access to one document.

Further Information

As mentioned in our email to you dated 15 April 2025, you may wish to view the OAIC FOI Statistics portal, a resource that contains information similar to the information you are seeking in this request. You can access the statistics portal at Australian Government freedom of information statistics | OAIC.

Disclosure log decision

Section 11C of the FOI Act requires the OAIC to publish documents released under the FOI Act on the OAIC’s disclosure log within 10 days of release, except if they contain personal or business information that would be unreasonable to publish.

I have made a decision to publish the document subject to your request on the OAIC’s disclosure log.

Release of document

The document is enclosed for release.

The document is identified in the attached schedule of documents.

Please see the following page for information about your review rights.

Yours sincerely

Marguerite Wilson-Foreman Assistant Director, Governance, Risk & Compliance (FOI and Privacy)

22 April 2025

Internal Review

You have the right to apply for an internal review of my decision under Part VI of the FOI Act. An internal review will be conducted, to the extent possible, by an officer of the OAIC who was not involved in or consulted in the making of my decision. If you wish to apply for an internal review, you must do so in writing within 30 days. There is no application fee for internal review.

If you wish to apply for an internal review, please mark your application for the attention of the FOI Coordinator and state the grounds on which you consider that my decision should be reviewed.

Applications for internal reviews can be submitted to:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner GPO Box 5228 SYDNEY NSW 2001

Alternatively, you can submit your application by email to foi@oaic.gov.au, or by fax on 02 9284 9666.

Further Review

You have the right to seek review of this decision by the Information Commissioner and the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART).

You may apply to the Information Commissioner for a review of my decision (IC review). If you wish to apply for IC review, you must do so in writing within 60 days. Your application must provide an address (which can be an email address or fax number) that we can send notices to, and include a copy of this letter. A request for IC review can be made in relation to my decision, or an internal review decision.

It is the Information Commissioner’s view that it will usually not be in the interests of the administration of the FOI Act to conduct an IC review of a decision, or an internal review decision, made by the agency that the Information Commissioner heads: the OAIC. For this reason, if you make an application for IC review of my decision, and the Information Commissioner is satisfied that in the interests of administration of the Act it is desirable that my decision be considered by the ART, the Information Commissioner may decide not to undertake an IC review.

Section 57A of the FOI Act

Section 57A of the FOI Act provides that, before you can apply to the ART for review of an FOI decision, you must first have applied for IC review.

Applications for IC review can be submitted online at: https://forms.business.gov.au/smartforms/servlet/SmartForm.html?formCode=I CR 10

Alternatively, you can submit your application to:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner GPO Box 5228 SYDNEY NSW 2001

Or by email to foidr@oaic.gov.au, or by fax on 02 9284 9666.

Accessing your information

If you would like access to the information that we hold about you, please contact foi@oaic.gov.au. More information is available on the Access our information page on our website.