Release of an Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) report to customer 001-02320050

Customers can access their own ESAt reports online using the Request a Document Service.

Customers need to create a myGov account and link Centrelink to access this service.

See Customer Information Release service and Release my Information service for more details about the online release process for ESAt reports.

In most cases, an ESAt report can be released by a Service Officer outside the formal Freedom of Information (FOI) process. Within Services Australia this is termed 'Informal Access'.

An ESAt report can only be released under Informal Access when:

• there is no current Disability Support Pension (DSP) new claim (or review of decision)
• there is no unfinalised Disability Medical Assessment (DMA) report on the customer's record
• the Assessor has not documented any concerns in the report about it being released to the customer
• the status of the report displays as 'Finalised', this means no further changes can be made to it

A formal Freedom of Information (FOI) request must be lodged if:

• the report does not have a status of 'Finalised' and early finalisation is not appropriate
• the Assessor has documented concerns in the report about it being released to the customer

A formal request under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 must be lodged in writing. On lodgement, the FOI request must be immediately forwarded to the FOI team.

For more information, see Requests lodged under the Freedom of Information Act 1982.

The Referral Summary (RRSUM) screen (in Process Direct and Customer First) and the Referral Detail (RRRD) screen (in Customer First) provide a summary of all ESAt referrals for the customer. This includes information about the status of the report (for example, 'Submitted', 'Finalised') and the Assessor that submitted the ESAt.

For release under Informal Access, consider the release of each report on its own merits.

A staff member with the relevant access can request early finalisation of the ESAt report.

Applying a manual finalisation solely to enable the release of the report should only be done after checking that this action will not affect the agency's decision about the customer's income support payment, or the customer's referral to an Employment Services Provider based on the submitted ESAt report.