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26 August 2025
Private and Confidential
Clancy
Right to know
Dear Clancy
Your Freedom of Information request1
Thank you for contacting us with a
Freedom of Information (FOI) request in your email dated 12 August
2025.
We are writing to you today to let you know that we were unable to process your request in the way that
it is currently written. We would like to work with you to amend your request into something that we can
process.
Scope of your request
From your correspondence, you stated that you were seeking information in the following terms:
I request a summary of costs incurred by AHPRA or its boards for dealing with complaints
about practitioners, specifically for matters that get to the stage of Health or Performance
assessments, Panel hearings, or Tribunal hearings, and specifically the costs incurred by
those processes, over a recent reporting period (ie 23/24 or 24/25)
For example, legal costs in presenting a matter, remuneration for assessors, panel or
tribunal members, costs for facilities in undertaking a hearing.
Please provide the requested information separated by profession, state and stage of matter.
Data could be given as an average, or total costs for the financial year. While seperated
costs ( eg staffing, legal costs, facilities) would be appreciated, it is not required.
If the provision of this is overly onerous for all the sub boards, limiting it to Nursing,
Midwifery, Medical Practitioners, and Dental would be acceptable
After carefully considering your request, it is my view that it does not meet the initial requirements in
making a valid request as set out in the FOI Act. Specifically, the request does not satisfy the
requirement in section 15(2)(b) (identification of documents) of the FOI Act. For your information
section 15 prescribes:
15 Requests for access
Persons may request access
(1) Subject to section 15A, a person who wishes to obtain access to a document of an agency or
an official document of a Minister may request access to the document.
Requirements for request
(2) The request must:
(a) be in writing; and
(aa) state that the request is an application for the purposes of this Act; and
1 This letter is an acknowledgement for the purposes of section 15(5)(a) of the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth)
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(b) provide such information concerning the document as is reasonably necessary to enable
a responsible officer of the agency, or the Minister, to identify it; and
(c) give details of how notices under this Act may be sent to the applicant (for example, by
providing an electronic address to which notices may be sent by electronic
communication.
Furthermore, the FOI Act defines a document as:
(a)
any of, or any part of any of, the following things: (i) any paper or other material
on which there is writing;
i. a map, plan, drawing or photograph;
ii. any paper or other material on which there are marks, figures, symbols or
perforations having a meaning for persons qualified to interpret them;
iii. any article or material from which sounds, images or writings are capable of
being reproduced with or without the aid of any other article or device;
iv. any article on which information has been stored or recorded, either
mechanical y or electronically;
v. any other record of information; or
(b)
any copy, reproduction or duplicate of such a thing; or
(c)
any part of such a copy, reproduction or duplicate; but does not include:
(d)
library material maintained for reference purposes; or
(e)
Cabinet notebooks.
At the outset, it is important to note that the FOI Act is about requests for access to documents. In the
way that it is currently written, your FOI request seeks information and answers to questions. From the
perspective of the FOI Act, the definition of a document is very broad (see above).
Would you please provide further details on the scope of your request to al ow the FOI officer to identify
potentially relevant documents? You may consider providing details about time periods, professions, or
names of specific documents that may contain the information that you seek.
Some areas of your request that are unclear include:
•
‘Summary of costs incurred by Ahpra or its Boards in dealing with complaints about
practitioners’
•
‘Legal costs in presenting a matter’ – What do you mean by ‘legal costs’ and ‘presenting a
matter’?
•
‘Over a reporting period’
•
‘Costs for facilities in undertaking a hearing’
What are your options?
Please write to me within the next 14 days indicating whether you want to:
• revise the request, or
• withdraw the request.
If I don’t hear from you or you don’t want to change your request, a decision wil be made based on
your original request, which at this point in time may be to refuse it on the basis that it is
insufficiently clear.
What happens next
If you do not respond to this letter within 14 days, we wil understand that you have withdrawn your
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request.
2 If you indicate you do not wish to revise your request, I wil make a decision based on the
information you have provided.
3 If you need more time to respond, please contact me within the 14 day period to discuss a possible
extension of time. Please note that the time period between when I send this letter and when you
respond, is not counted in determining processing time under the Act.
4
More information
Important information about the Freedom of Information Act can be found on the Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner’s website at
www.oaic.gov.au.
Contact
I’m looking forward to working with you to revise your request in a way that we can consider it. If you
have any questions or would like to discuss this letter, please contact me
xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx.xx. If you
do this, please tel me the reference number below.
Yours sincerely
Ahpra FOI Team
National Information Release Unit
Reference Number: FOI54126
2 Under section 24AB(7) of the FOI Act
3 Under section 24(1) of the FOI Act.
4 Under section 24AB(8) of the FOI Act.
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Document Outline
