Dear Megan

Thank you for your request for information held by the National Disability
Insurance Agency, received on 17 November 2025.

Scope of your request

You have requested access to:

… all information held by [the NDIA] that show:

 1. The most recent reporting of the number of NDIS participants with
“severe intellectual disability” as their primary disability broken
down by age or age groups
 2. The most recent reporting of the number of NDIS [participants] with
“severe intellectual disability” but not as their primary disability
type broken down by age or age group
 3. Reporting on the cost of NDIS plans for participants with “severe
intellectual disability” as broken down in 1 & 2 above.
 4. Repeat 1, 2 and 3 above for Level 3 (severe) autism.

Processing timeframes

A 30-day statutory period for processing your request commenced from 18
November 2025, in accordance with section 15(5)(b) of the FOI Act. You
should, therefore, have been able to expect a decision from us by 18
December 2025.

I apologise for our failure to furnish you with a decision within the
30-day timeframe and advise that this gives rise to rights of external
review and complaint. Please let me know if you wish to exercise those
rights and I will provide information about how to do so.

Disclosure log

Information released under the FOI Act may be published on the NDIA’s
disclosure log, located on our website, subject to certain exceptions.

If you have any concerns about the publication of the information you have
requested, please contact us.

Preliminary enquiries

We have made some preliminary enquiries with the NDIA’s Analytics, Data
and Actuarial (ADA) Requests team who have suggested 2 different
approaches they could take to your request.

Approach 1: The ICD code for Severe intellectual disability is F72. There
are also ICD codes for other levels of intellectual disability: F70 for
Mild intellectual disability, F71 for Moderate intellectual disability and
F73 for Profound intellectual disability. ADA have advised they are able
to provide the primary and non-primary count of active participants for
F72-Severe intellectual disability as at 30 September 2025.

Approach 2: Participants with a primary disability of F72-Severe
intellectual disability would be classified as having a Low level of
function i.e. a LoF between 11 and 15. ADA can provide the figure for
participants who are classified as having this LoF but only for
participants who have a Severe intellectual disability listed as their
primary disability.

To inform your decision about which approach you would prefer, you may
wish to refer to the extensive material available at [1]Participant
dashboards  | NDIS. 

I look forward to your response.

Regards

Helen [HIL533]

Senior Freedom of Information Officer

Information Access and Privacy Branch

Reviews and Information Release Division

National Disability Insurance Agency

E [2][email address]

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The NDIA acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout
Australia and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We
pay our respects to them and their cultures and to Elders past and
present.

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