Unredacted copy of FOI 24/25-0761 (NDIS Review correspondence)
Dear National Disability Insurance Agency,
I am writing to request an unredacted copy of the documents released under FOI 24/25-0761 for the purposes of the FOI Act, along with the presentation materials referred to in the documents released.
Specifically, I am seeking:
1) A copy of the documents from the previous release with all sections previously redacted as irrelevant to be unredacted. Sections redacted for personal privacy can remain unchanged.
2) A copy of the Cost Drivers presentation materials.
3) A copy of the other presentation materials. Based on the reference to EI, I presume this refers to Early Intervention. I trust the document is readily identifiable regardless. If both topics are in one pack, please consider the entire pack in scope.
Yours faithfully,
Cat
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Kind regards
Freedom of Information Team
Complaints Management & FOI Branch
General Counsel Division
National Disability Insurance Agency
E [11][NDIA request email]
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, present
and emerging.
References
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1. https://www.ndis.gov.au/about-us/policie...
2. https://www.ndis.gov.au/about-us/policie...
3. https://www.ndis.gov.au/about-us/policie...
4. https://www.ndis.gov.au/participants/usi...
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6. https://data.ndis.gov.au/
7. mailto:[NDIA request email]
8. https://www.ndis.gov.au/about-us/policie...
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10. https://www.ndis.gov.au/
11. mailto:[NDIA request email]
Dear Cat
Freedom of Information Request: Acknowledgement
Thank you for your request of 26 May 2025, made under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (FOI Act), for documents/information held by the
National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).
Scope of your Request
You have requested access to:
“I am writing to request an unredacted copy of the documents released
under FOI 24/25-0761 for the purposes of the FOI Act, along with the
presentation materials referred to in the documents released.
Specifically, I am seeking:
1) A copy of the documents from the previous release with all sections
previously redacted as irrelevant to be unredacted. Sections redacted for
personal privacy can remain unchanged.
2) A copy of the Cost Drivers presentation materials.
3) A copy of the other presentation materials. Based on the reference to
EI, I presume this refers to Early Intervention. I trust the document is
readily identifiable regardless. If both topics are in one pack, please
consider the entire pack in scope.”
Irrelevant Information
Section 22 of the FOI Act allows an Agency to redact information from
documents if that information would reasonably be regarded as irrelevant
to a request for access.
Given the nature of your request, it does not seem that NDIA staff
members’ surnames and contact details would be relevant to you. Can you
please send me a reply email confirming that such details are irrelevant
to your request for access?
Processing Timeframes
In accordance with section 15(5)(b) of the FOI Act, a 30-day statutory
period for processing your request commenced from 27 May 2025. This 30-day
period expires on 25 June 2025.
The 30-day period can be extended in a number of ways, including with your
agreement.
Unfortunately, it is currently taking us a little longer than 30 days to
process FOI requests due to a very high volume. I am therefore seeking
your agreement to a 30-day extension of time under section 15AA of the FOI
Act. If you agree to this extension, the new due date for us to decide on
your request will be 25 July 2025.
If you do not agree and we are unable to process your request within the
30-day period, we will be deemed to have refused your request and you will
not have a right to seek internal review of that decision. You will,
however, retain your right to external review by the Australian
Information Commissioner.
Please let us know if you agree by 1 June 2025.
Disclosure Log
Subject to certain exceptions, documents released under the FOI Act will
be published on the NDIA’s disclosure log located on our website.
If you have any concerns about the publication of the documents you have
requested, please contact me.
Next steps
Your request will be allocated to an authorised FOI decision-maker. The
decision-maker may need to contact you to discuss a range of matters,
including refining the scope of your request.
We will contact you using the email address you have provided. Please
advise if you would prefer us to use an alternative means of contact.
In the meantime, if you have any questions or need help, please contact us
at [1][NDIA request email].
Kind regards
Poojan
Freedom of Information Officer
Information Release, Privacy and Legal Operations Branch.
Reviews and Information Release Division
National Disability Insurance Agency
E [2][NDIA request email]
[3]NDIA logo
[4]LGBTIQA+ rainbow graphic
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, present
and emerging.
Dear foi,
As these documents have previously been located and the presentation(s) should be readily located at an earlier point in the relevant correspondence, and because the previous release was a new request agreed to finalise a larger request from 2022/23, no, I do not agree to the extension.
Per the previous decision, this correspondence was located by searching the "internal email address that was created for the specific use of communicating with the NDIS Review" with the assistance of the Cyber Security Operations Division. This appears to be the "NDIS Review Liaison Office" address.
The original email from a PMC address on behalf of the NDIS Secretariat, to which I presume the presentations are attached, has the subject line "Subject: Presentations for review [SEC=OFFICIAL]" and was sent to the NDIA on Tuesday 30 May 2023.
Please refer to my scope for redactions agreed and not agreed, given the existing documents are sought with information previously deemed irrelevant unredacted. The only new documents sought are the presentation(s) in question.
Please treat all information in the presentations as relevant except personal information.
Yours sincerely,
Cat
Dear foi,
Can you please confirm you are still processing this request, and an ETA on material which has mostly been released previously in more complete form, and which is otherwise easy to locate via the correspondence identified for the previous request, per my last email? (You can find that here: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/u... )
Yours sincerely,
Cat
Good afternoon Cat,
I acknowledge that we have failed to meet the 30-day statutory deadline
for providing you with a decision on this request for access to the
Agency’s documents. That deadline expired on 25 June 2025.
We currently have a very large volume of FOI requests on hand and are
working to address each one in a logical and timely manner. I can assure
you that this approach will be taken to your current request.
I apologise for the delay you are experiencing, and I thank you for your
patience and understanding.
Kind Regards,
Mackenzie
Triage Officer – Triage and Early Resolution
Information Release, Privacy and Legal Operations Branch
Reviews and Information Release Division
National Disability Insurance Agency
[1][NDIA request email]
[2]NDIA logo
[3]LGBTIQA+ rainbow graphic
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, present
and emerging.
Dear foi,
It has now been almost three months since requesting the unredacted version of, and attachments to, a request which was itself long, long overdue. As I said to the original decision-maker when urging it be reissued promptly without redaction of the 'irrelevant' sections: "the information I can see in isolation doesn't add up with my own observations and I'm hoping the rest places it in a context that reads less scandalously than it does in isolation."
The delays in re-releasing an existing request with the missing information, the documents already having been located, are not acceptable when the only reason this request is not part of an ongoing IC Review and Revised Decision negotiation is because it is now almost two years after negotiating the IC Review this request was originally part of, which I withdrew in good faith late last year to support the Agency's workload by splitting it into four requests.
In the context of this request's history and other notable outstanding requests on this site, any further delays suggest the ongoing failure to meet statutory timeframes is a deliberate choice by the Agency not to resource FOI properly, and increasingly creates the impression that this failure is an artificial and strategic one which serves to delay timely release of information to which significant public interest factors apply, even when there is no justifiable reason for delays.
That is, the ongoing delays and failure by the Agency to resource FOI appropriately for the duration of major five-year reforms it is otherwise obsessed with speed on, suggest the Agency is deliberately acting inconsistently with the objects of the FOI Act; namely: "The Parliament intends, by these objects, to promote Australia’s representative democracy by contributing towards the following: (a) increasing public participation in Government processes, with a view to promoting better‑informed decision‑making; (b) increasing scrutiny, discussion, comment and review of the Government’s activities."
In this instance, public interest factors include transparency over what exactly the NDIA represented to the NDIS Review in relation to the 'irrelevant' material and whether that does indeed paint the information released in a less scandalous light or raises other concerns, in the further context of 'agile' reforms the NDIA is telling the Government not to slow down so that those reforms can be implemented as soon as possible despite widespread concerns of harm.
I expect that may likely raise proposed alternative exemptions about intergovernmental relations, and submit that those relationships are far more likely to be compromised if relevant information about how certain recommendations were reached is withheld from the sector until it is too late to fact-check and consider in consultation around those negotiations.
Moreover, I note that the information requested relates to a significant proportion of NDIS participants who have been excluded from major policy decisions about their future access to support, which – together with an ongoing lack of transparency so bad I am asking for clarity about what was said over two years ago – is also in conflict with the Agency's international obligations under Article 4(3) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, despite its place in the Objects of the NDIS Act.
Radical transparency is long overdue but would nonetheless mitigate some of the harms, including of uncertainty over what the future holds, and what assumptions proposed directions are based on.
As such, please provide an ETA on release of this request.
Processing it requires no further searches because the documents have already been located, per my 29 May 2025 response:
"As these documents have previously been located and the presentation(s) should be readily located at an earlier point in the relevant correspondence, and because the previous release was a new request agreed to finalise a larger request from 2022/23, no, I do not agree to the extension.
Per the previous decision, this correspondence was located by searching the "internal email address that was created for the specific use of communicating with the NDIS Review" with the assistance of the Cyber Security Operations Division. This appears to be the "NDIS Review Liaison Office" address. The original email from a PMC address on behalf of the NDIS Secretariat, to which I presume the presentations are attached, has the subject line "Subject: Presentations for review [SEC=OFFICIAL]" and was sent to the NDIA on Tuesday 30 May 2023.
Please refer to my scope for redactions agreed and not agreed, given the existing documents are sought with information previously deemed irrelevant unredacted. The only new documents sought are the presentation(s) in question. Please treat all information in the presentations as relevant except personal information."
Yours sincerely,
Cat
Good Morning Cat,
I refer to your below correspondence.
I acknowledge that we have failed to meet the 30-day statutory deadline
for providing you with a decision on your request. That deadline expired
on 25/06/2025.
I apologise for the lack of update provided to you by the FOI team and
acknowledge your frustrations in relation to this. The volume of requests
we have, and continue to receive, has regrettably impacted on timeframes
for response, however, we are working to address each one in a logical and
timely manner and I can assure you that this approach will be taken to
your current request.
I apologise again for the delay you are experiencing, and I thank you for
your patience and understanding.
Kind Regards,
Bree
Triage Officer – Triage and Early Resolution
Information Release, Privacy and Legal Operations Branch
Reviews and Information Release Division
National Disability Insurance Agency
[1][NDIA request email]
[2]NDIA logo
[3]LGBTIQA+ rainbow graphic
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, present
and emerging.
Dear Bree,
I appreciate your prompt follow-up and apology, but such apologies should not fall on triage officers such as yourself when the Agency's inability to meet timeframes is a longstanding and ongoing issue the Agency's leadership has been aware of throughout the increased demand arising from these reforms, and has not addressed in a manner proportionate to the evident need for greater transparency and scrutiny (delivered within statutory timeframes).
These reforms mean the demand will not reduce for several years, and may well continue increasing as a direct result of the impact of reforms on participants and families. The Agency needs to resource your team appropriately for this, because it isn't fair on you or us.
Those with the power to change that already know this, but please capture that systemic issue feedback again anyway, in the hopes they actually do.
Yours sincerely,
Cat