NDIA Accountability Project

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Freedom of Information request — Request consultation process

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Freedom of Information request — Request consultation process

Thank you for your 3 pieces of correspondence received on 9 July 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).

These 3 requests are being treated as one request for the purpose of section 24(2) of the FOI Act. This means you only have to respond to this letter once, to negotiate the scope of all your requests at the same time.

Scope of your request

These 3 requests have been grouped together because they all related to the same subject matter. They are all seeking documents related to Model Litigant Obligation (MLO) complaints received by the NDIA.

You have requested access to the following documents:

[1364] FOI 25/26-0073

“…” For all MLO complaints which were investigated from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025, I request:

  • A list of all the external legal providers engaged by the NDIA to investigate these MLO complaints.

Practical refusal

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

I am writing to advise that your request does not provide enough information about the documents you are seeking as is reasonably necessary to allow us to identify them. This is called a ‘practical refusal reason’ under section 24AA of the FOI Act.

I am also writing to advise that the work involved in processing your request in its current form would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the NDIA from its other operations due to its size. This is also called a ‘practical refusal reason’ under section 24AA of the FOI Act.

On this basis, I intend to refuse your request. 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 under 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

We have consulted with relevant NDIA staff who could be expected to be able to identify documents within the scope of the request, including staff who are knowledgeable about how to conduct searches of the NDIA’s LEX systems. Those searches indicate that the NDIA unable to locate documents that may be relevant to your request. This outcome shows that

The NDIA’s LEX System

The terms of your request do not provide sufficient information to allow us to identify the specific documents that you are seeking.

This is because the NDIA’s LEX system is not a “database,” which is how you have described it. LEX, a matter management software that contains numerous linked records in the form of emails, documents, attachments, file notes, references to legislative acts, staff reminders, timesheet entries, invoices, and more. You can read more about what LEX is on the company’s website: LEX - Lex Australia - software for in-house lawyers and contract managers

The wording of your request does not provide sufficient information for me to understand what LEX records specifically you are seeking access to. As such, you have not provided sufficient detail for me to identify the documents you want to access.

In addition, the NDIA doesn’t operate a single LEX system; it has multiple LEX systems. Each LEX system is designed for use in a particular sub-team within the NDIA. Each LEX system potentially has tens of thousands of main records. Each main record is potentially linked to hundreds of records including file notes, attachments, reminders and other documents. You have not specified which version of LEX you wish us to search. Therefore, my interpretation is that you wish me to search all versions of LEX, which encompasses hundreds of thousands – or potentially millions - of documents.

These hits will not be in the form of “entries,” as you have suggested. Many will be in the form of documents which may be many pages in length and may take the form of personal emails, medical reports, assessments, and other highly sensitive materials. This is because MLO complaints are usually lodged by individual NDIS participants involved in Administrative Reviews Tribunal (ART) matters. These complaints commonly outline their personal circumstances such as their disability, medical history and supports in dispute. You do not have the authority to access the personal, protected information of other people involved with the NDIS. Releasing this kind of sensitive information to you would be a serious breach of other people’s personal privacy.

I note that one of your emails sought access to all reports about MLO matters sent to the Office of Legal Services Coordination (OLSC). This part of your request does not contain a date range or any clarifying information about the kind of reports you are interested in. As such, the scope of your request encompasses any report made to OLSC since the inception of the NDIA in 2013. This is over a decade’s worth of reports and it will encompass thousands of reports. This will include numerous reports sent about specific participants’ matters.

Request consultation process

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

In this context, revising your request means both narrowing the scope of the request to make it more manageable and explaining in more detail the documents you wish to access. For example, by providing more specific information about exactly what documents you are interested in, the NDIA will be able to pinpoint the documents more quickly and avoid using excessive resources to process documents you are not interested in.

To reduce the scope of your request, you might like to consider:

  • Specifying which version of LEX you wish to search.

  • Specifying whether you wish us to access only the main matter record on LEX, or to also search other documents or notes and notes attached to those main records. If you wish us to search linked documents or notes, please specify what category.

  • Specifying what kind of OLSC reports you wish to access. For example, you might like to exclude any reports made about the progress on individual participants’ matters. You can find out more about OLSC’s reporting functions by reading their website: Compliance and reporting | Attorney-General’s Department

  • Including a date range to limit the OLSC reports to a defined period.

  • Specifically stating that you do not wish to access the personal information of any NDIS participants. Specifically stating that if other people’s personal information appears within searches, you agree for it to be redacted as irrelevant.

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.

Please note that the time taken to consult with you regarding the scope of your request is not taken into account for the purposes of the timeframe for processing your request.

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

Alternatively, you can reply in writing to the following address:

Freedom of Information Section Information Release, Privacy and Legal Operations Branch Reviews and Information Release Division National Disability Insurance Agency GPO Box 700 CANBERRA ACT 2601

If you do not contact me within this period, that is by 20 August 2025, your FOI request will be taken to have been withdrawn under subsection 24AB(7) and will not be dealt with any further.

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

Please also be advised you can lodge a FOI request with the Attorney-General’s Department to access OLSC documents directly. There is more advice about how to do this on their website: Freedom of information disclosure log—Solicitor-General | Attorney-General’s Department.

Yours sincerely

Laura

Laura LDP633 Assistant Director Information Release, Privacy and Legal Operations Branch Reviews and Information Release Division