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NDIS — FOI 25/265-0527: Notification of Decision

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Freedom of Information request — Notice of revised decision under section 55G of the Freedom of Information Act 1982

Thank you for your correspondence of 29 August 2025, in which you requested access to information held 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 revised decision on your request.

Scope of your request

You requested access as follows:

  • I request the following information for the last five (5) financial years (e.g., 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25), broken down on a yearly basis:

    • Application and Rejection Data

      • I request the following data, specifically for individuals who have listed one of the following conditions as their primary or secondary disability:

        • Chronic pain
        • Fibromyalgia
        • Central Sensitivity Syndrome
        • Central Regional Pain Syndrome
        • Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

    For each of these conditions, I request:

      * The number of people who have applied for NDIS support.
  * The number of people who have been accepted for NDIS support.
  * The number of people who have been rejected for NDIS support.

  • I request this data in a machine-readable format, such as an Excel or CSV file …

On 19 November 2025, the FOI team emailed you advising of a response we had received from the Agency’s Analytics, Data and Actuarial (ADA) team in relation to your request. ADA advised that they were only able to extract data from the Participants count by diagnosis document available at Participant datasets | NDIS. This document does not list International Classification of Diseases codes (ICD codes) for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome or

Central Regional Pain Syndrome

Rather, it lists ICD G90.5 Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome. ADA were unable to locate an ICD code for Central Sensitivity Syndrome.

In our email of 19 November 2025, we advised of this and suggested that you might wish to limit your request to figures relating to diagnoses of Chronic Pain, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome. We also suggested amending your request so that it was for:

  • The number of people with an access decision made
  • The number of people with access met
  • The people with access not met.

We did not receive a response to that email.

On 5 December 2025, I emailed you asking for a response and advising that, if I did not receive one by 12 December 2025, I would process your request on the basis set out in the earlier email.

As I did not receive a response to my email of 5 December 2025, I have processed your request on the basis suggested in the email of 19 November 2025.

Processing period

The original due date for our access decision on your FOI request was 29 September 2025. On 2 September 2025, you agreed to a 30-day extension of time under section 15AA of the FOI Act, making 29 October 2025 the new due date. We have been experiencing processing delays and were not able to provide you with our decision by that date. Consequently, your application was regarded as a deemed refusal under section 15AC of the FOI Act. We sincerely apologise for this.

We note that you have now applied to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) for a review by the Information Commissioner (IC) of our deemed refusal.

Revised decision under section 55G

Section 55G(1)(a) of the FOI Act provides that at any time during an IC review, an Agency may vary an access refusal decision in favour of the applicant by giving access to documents in accordance with the request (revised decision).

Section 55G(2) provides that an Agency must notify the IC of the revised decision, and that decision becomes the decision under review.

Decision on access to documents

I am authorised to make decisions under section 23(1) of the FOI Act, including revised decisions under s55G of that Act. My revised decision on your request and the reasons for my decision are set out below.

I have identified a single document, which falls within the scope of your request and have decided to grant you access to it in full.

This document has been produced using data provided by ADA. This is permitted by section 17 of the FOI Act, which relevantly provides: (1) Where:

  • (a) A request … is made in accordance with the requirements of subsection 15(2) to an agency;
  • (b) It appears from the request that the desire of the applicant is for information that is not available in discrete form in written documents of the agency;
  • (ba) …

(c) The agency could produce a written document containing the information in discrete form by:

  • (i) The use of a computer or other equipment that is ordinarily available to the agency for retrieving or collating stored information; …
  • (ii) … the agency shall deal with the request as if it were a request for access to a written document so produced and containing that information and, for that purpose, this Act applies as if the agency had such a document in its possession.

In reaching my decision, I took the following into account:

  • your correspondence outlining the scope of your request
  • the nature and content of the documents falling within the scope of your request
  • the FOI Act
  • the FOI Guidelines published under section 93A of the FOI Act
  • the notice of IC review
  • consultation with relevant NDIA staff
  • the NDIA’s operating environment and functions.

Release of documents

The document for release, as referred to in the Schedule of Documents at Attachment A, is enclosed.

In accordance with section 55G(2) of the FOI Act, I will be providing the IC with a copy of this revised decision.

If you determine that you are satisfied with this revised decision and do not require this decision to be reviewed further by the IC, please let the Agency and the OAIC know.

If you would like clarification on any aspect of my decision, please do not hesitate to contact me by email at foi@ndis.gov.au.

Yours sincerely,

Helen Senior Freedom of Information Officer [HIL533] Information Access and Privacy Reviews and Information Release Division

Schedule of Documents for FOI 25/265-0527 | MR25-02351

Attachment A

Document number Page number Description Access Decision Comments
1 1 Statistical Data
Date: As of 14 January 2026.		 FULL ACCESS Document created under section 17 of the FOI Act

Delivered by the National Disability Insurance Agency