Our reference: FOI 24/25-1089
28 February 2025
GPO Box 700
Canberra ACT 2601
1800 800 110
Elias
ndis.gov.au
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Elias
Freedom of Information request — Request consultation process
Thank you for your correspondence of 12 January 2025, 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 fol owing documents:
Al current internal knowledge articles, standard operating procedures, checklists,
and templates pertaining to:
1. ‘Escalation and Prioritisation Matrix’
2. ‘Risk assessment task’
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 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 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
After reviewing your request, I have concluded that searches required to compile all
documents relevant to the scope of your request would require me to go to every business
area within the agency. This is because you have asked for a general document category
without specifying a topic for the documents you are seeking.
The agency in its current form has over 120 Branches/Divisions with each of these having
multiple teams that potentially have escalation and prioritisation matrixes or risk assessment
documents. On a reasonable estimate, the time that it would take to consult with all of these
areas, have them conduct searches, and respond back with documents relevant to the
scope of your request would take an FOI Officer over 20 hours, and would take business
areas a combined total of over 120 hours.
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I note that any documents located from these searches would then need to be reviewed for
any sensitivities and possible exemption under the FOI Act and scheduled, we wil need to
consider any consultations and carry these out if required, a decision wil need to be made
on each document, and a decision letter prepared. This wil significantly increase the hours
that it wil 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
substantial y 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 wil 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:
• Providing a topic for the documents you are requesting (e.g. Escalation and Prioritisation
Matrixes and Risk Assessment Tasks surrounding Freedom of Information Applications).
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 wil recommence processing it.
You can contact me by email
at xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx.
Alternatively, you can reply in writing to the following address:
Freedom of Information Section
Complaints Management & FOI Branch
General Counsel Division
National Disability Insurance Agency
GPO Box 700
CANBERRA ACT 2601
If you do not contact me within this period, I wil progress to provide you a decision refusing
access to the information you have requested on the basis that that searches required would
constitute an unreasonable diversion of resources.
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Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Yours sincerely
Patrick (PHO293)
Senior Freedom of Information Officer
Complaints Management & FOI Branch
General Counsel Division
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