Our reference: FOI 24/25-0930
27 February 2025
Paul Carter
By email: foi+request-12536-732ee991@righttoknow.org.au
Dear Paul Carter
Freedom of Information request — Request consultation process
Thank you for your correspondence of 10 December 2024, 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:
“As per the Freedom of Information Act I am requesting access to documents within the following scope:
Articles:
- All articles on “case types” (“After you record comments, continue working through the case using the articles relevant to the case type.”)
- Article “View the Person Account Timeline”
Case activity/note:
- All possible selections for the “Case” form field when logging “an activity or internal note to the case”.
- All possible selections for the “Activity Type” form field when logging “an activity or internal note to the case”.
- All possible selections for the “Outcome” form field for each individual Activity Type, when logging “an activity or internal note to the case”.
- All possible selections for the “Subject” form field when logging “an activity or internal note to the case”.
Person account activity/note:
- All possible selections for the “Activity Type” form field when logging “an activity or internal note to the person account”
- All possible selections for the “Subject” form field when logging “an activity or internal note to the person account”
- All possible selections for the “Category” form field when logging “an activity or internal note to the person account””
Practical refusal
I am authorised to make decisions under section 23(1) of the FOI Act.
I am 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 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
The relevant line area has conducted a preliminary search for documents which are likely to be relevant to your request. They have advised that there are around 35 cases, each with approximately 480 Knowledge Articles in each case. This leads to this search revealing that the NDIA is in possession of more than 16 800 individual documents matching the scope of your request, not including any attachments which may be contained within those documents.
On my reasonable estimate, I consider that there is more than 50 000 pages worth of material that falls within the scope of your request as currently worded, not including any attachments. At a conservative estimate of 1 minute per page, this would take an FOI officer more than 840 hours to simply review and collate the documents.
The documents that are assessed as being within scope of the request will then need to be reviewed for any sensitivities and possible exemption under the FOI Act and scheduled, we will need to consider any consultations and carry these out if required, a decision will need to be made on each document, and a decision letter prepared. This will significantly increase the hours that it will take an FOI officer to process your request.
As a result, I am of the view that the work involved in the processing of this request would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the NDIA from its other operations.
Request consultation process
You now have an opportunity to revise your request to enable it to proceed.
Revising your request can mean narrowing the scope of the request to make it more manageable or 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:
- A specific document or case
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 may wish to peruse our disclosure log for Knowledge Articles that have been previously released, and request those. This can be found at FOI Disclosure log | NDIS.
You can contact me by email at redacted.
Alternatively, you can reply in writing to the following address:
Freedom of Information Section Parliamentary, Ministerial & FOI Branch Government Division National Disability Insurance Agency GPO Box 700 CANBERRA ACT 2601
If you do not contact me within this period, that is by 13 March 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.
Yours sincerely
Kate (KIM627)
A/Assistant Director – Freedom of Information Non Personals Team Complaints Management and FOI Branch General Counsel Division