I’ve just received the Freedom of Information (FOI) Commissioner’s decision regarding the LANTITE technical and administrative reports that I requested in 2021. In March 2021, the Department of Education decided to refuse access to these reports, arguing that they were exempt from release under the FOI Act. The FOI Commissioner had to decide “whether documents relating to the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE) are confidential and/or contain commercially valuable information which would be diminished by disclosure.”
The good news is that the FOI Commissioner has set aside the Department’s decision and substituted their own decision that the LANTITE reports I requested are not exempt under sections 45 or 47(1)(b) of the FOI Act.
Further, the FOI Commissioner has decided that “material in the documents which the Department maintains is conditionally exempt under [section] 47F is not personal information and is not conditionally exempt” under [section] 47F”.
The Department now has 28 days from the decision date (19/3/25) to provide me with a copy of the documents, and “advise the [FOI Commissioner] whether it has fully implemented my decision or whether it will be seeking review of the decision by the Administrative Review Tribunal.”
The decision is available to read here.
I’ll post again once I’ve had time to read the 12-page decision from the FOI Commissioner, and when I have updates on the LANTITE reports themselves (i.e., the Department has provided me with the reports or gone to the Adminstrative Review Tribunal for review).
pedagogablog 
Hi there! I was reading your blogs about the LANTITE with great anticipation! Did you get the documents? I’m doing my PhD on something similar …
Hi Naomi. Thank you for reading and commenting – it’s great to know that the posts and FOI stuff is relevant/helpful 🙂
I’m sorry for not posting an update – I’ve been ensconced in finishing my own PhD (not about LANTITE)! I didn’t realise that it’d already been over six months since my last one!
The good news is that the reports are all now publicly available via the Department of Education’s FOI Disclosure Log: https://www.education.gov.au/about-department/corporate-reporting/freedom-information-foi/foi-disclosure-log
I haven’t read or analysed the reports myself yet but I’d love to know what other people think of them and I’m keen to read your work on it! I’ll get to them in a few months, hopefully, and I aim to post my thoughts.
Feel free to email me (Kyle.smith@hdr.qut.edu.au)if you’d like to chat more about LANTITE or share resources.