Lodge a Freedom of Information (FOI) request

The FOI Act and your rights

The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (the FOI Act) gives you the right to:

• access copies of documents (except exempt documents) we hold
• ask for information we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, out of date, incorrect or misleading
• seek a review of our decision not to allow you access to a document or not to amend your personal record.

You can ask to see any document that we hold.

We can refuse access to some documents, or parts of documents that are exempt.

Exempt documents may include those relating to national security, documents containing material obtained in confidence and other matters set out in the FOI Act.

Accessing information without an FOI request

You can get certain information, including personal information we hold about you, without following a formal process under the FOI Act.

Please contact the FOI Coordinator on 1800 035 544 or by email at FOI@ndiscommission.gov.au to find out whether the information you seek can be provided to you outside the FOI Act.

Information Publication Scheme

The FOI Act requires government agencies to have an Information Publication Scheme (IPS). Under an IPS, an agency makes information available to the general public to help them understand what the agency does, how it makes decisions and how the public can access its services.

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (NDIS Commission) meets these requirements by publishing this information on our website.

How to make a request

You can send your request to FOI@ndiscommission.gov.au.

Your request must:

• be in writing
• state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act
• provide information about the document(s) to which you are requesting access to assist us to process your request
• provide an address for our reply to you.

Fees and charges

There is no fee for making an FOI request.

There are no processing charges for requests for access to documents containing only personal information about you. However, processing charges may apply to other requests.

We will give you an estimate of any applicable charges. These may include:

• Search and retrieval of documents: $15.00 per hour
• Photocopying: $0.10 per page
• Decision making including time spent deciding to refuse or grant a request, examining documents and consulting with other parties: free for first 5 hours and $20.00 for subsequent hours.
• Supervision of your inspection of documents, audio or visual recording at our premises: $6.25 per half hour (or part thereof).
• Cost of postage or delivery. We may ask you to pay a deposit if the estimated cost of delivery is over $20.00.

Timeline for FOIs

We will tell you within 14 days that we have received your request.

We will also give you an estimate of any charges that apply to your request.

We will give you our decision within 30 days, unless that time has been extended. If a document contains information about a third party, we will need to consult them and may need to extend the time as the FOI legislation allows to give you our decision by another 30 days.

We may also seek your agreement to extend the time by up to 30 days if your request is complex.

Reviews of FOI decisions

When we have made a decision about your FOI request, we will send you a letter explaining our decision and your review and appeal rights.

You can ask for one of the following decisions to be reviewed:

• if we refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or if we defer giving you access
• if we impose a charge
• if we refuse to change or annotate information about you that is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.

If we decide to give you documents that contain information about other people, they can also ask for our decision to be reviewed.

Internal review

You can request in writing an internal review of our decision. An internal review will be conducted by another officer in our agency, usually senior to the original decision-maker. We will advise you of our new decision within 30 days of receiving your request.

Information Commissioner review

You can ask the Australian Information Commissioner to review our original decision or our decision on internal review within 60 days of the date of decision (or 30 days after you are notified if you are an affected third party).

The Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision or substitute a new decision. The Information Commissioner may decide not to conduct a review in certain circumstances. More information is available at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) website.

Complaints about FOI requests

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request, you can complain to the Australian Information Commissioner who may investigate our actions. More information is available on the OAIC's website.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman can also investigate complaints about our actions. However, the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner will consult to avoid the same matter being investigated twice.

FOI Disclosure Log

Certain documents which the Commission has released under the FOI Act are available on our FOI Disclosure Log.