Our reference: FOI 23/24-0145
28 August 2023
Karen and Rob Stewart
Right to Know
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx Dear Karen and Rob Stewart
Freedom of Information request — Request consultation process
Thank you for your correspondence of 10 August 2023, 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:
“I request a copy of all documents, file notes, emails, correspondence and reports of the
Tasmanian PACE evaluation/trial, including the methodology used, participant responses
and full questionnaires”
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, complexity, and broad scope. 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 my 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.
I have conducted a preliminary search for documents which are likely to be relevant to your
request. This search has revealed that the NDIA is in possession of more than 613
evaluation files, noting there are several excel documents with numerous tabs which have
not been calculated as separate files. As a conservative estimate, it would take an Officer
613 hours to review these files, which is around 82 days based on a 7.5 hr workday.
In addition, the email count, which is based on an average only, is likely to be higher than
1490 (not including attachments). We have received more than 400 survey responses from
people with disability, participants and their family and carers. We have held focus groups
with our Participant Reference Group and held virtual and in-person community engagement
sessions in Tasmania with over 340 people, participants, families, and carers attending.
1
We have also held 24 Tasmanian specific engagement sessions with over 1,859 registered
attendees. Tasmanian disability representatives and carer organisations have also run focus
groups and sent out 26 surveys to 43 focus groups.
On my reasonable estimate, I consider the size and complexity of data responsive to your
scope would take an FOI officer significantly more than, and in addition to, the 613 hours or
82 days or 16 weeks required by the originating officer conducting the document search,
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 assist you in reducing the scope of your request, I am providing you with a link to our
website where the information described above has been assessed, evaluated, and reported
on and has been provided in a number of formats catering to differing needs. Please see the
link below:
Checking your feedback from the Tasmania test | NDIS
As this information, which is publicly available, directly relates to the scope of your
application, on review of this information, I invite you to consider your options moving
forward with this FOI application. Your options are as follows:
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, noting that significant processing charges could still be
incurred.
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
xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx.
2
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 11 September 2023, 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
Jennifer Senior Freedom of Information Officer
Parliamentary, Ministerial & FOI Branch
Government Division
3
