Freedom of Information (FOI)

This page provides the types of documents held by Yarra Valley Water, where you can find them, and an overview of the organisational structure and functions of Yarra Valley Water.

By making this information easily accessible, we aim to reduce the need for members of the public to make formal requests under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act).

1. Statement of Organisation and Functions

Organisation structure

View our Executive leadership team

View our Board of Directors

Governance

Effective from 1 July 2012, Yarra Valley Water became a corporation under the Water Act 1989. We are subject to regulation by the Essential Services Commission.

View our Statement of Obligations

The Board of Directors is responsible for setting the strategic direction, establishing goals for management and monitoring their achievement and monitoring the performance of the business.

Three board sub-committees are convened on a quarterly basis:

Finance, Audit and Risk Management Committee
Customer, Asset and Sustainability Committee
Leadership, Culture and Wellbeing Committee

View our Governance

2. Statement of Categories of Documents

Yarra Valley Water produces and maintains a large range of documents and records in the course of carrying out its activities.

The types of documents we handle include:

charters, strategies, policies and procedures
meeting records
reports, statements and briefings
registers and databases
correspondence
applications, permits, agreements, leases and licenses
financial records
maps and plans
photographs and audio-visual material.

3. How to make a request for documents under the FOI Act

Your rights under the FOI Act

The FOI Act provides you with the following rights:

To request copies of documents held by Yarra Valley Water;
To ask for your personal information held by Yarra Valley Water to be amended if it is incomplete, outdated, incorrect or otherwise misleading;
Seek a review of any decision on your request.

While you have a right to access documents, access to documents may be refused based on exceptions and exemptions under the FOI Act.

Lodging a FOI request

Before lodging a FOI request, we encourage you to first check to see whether the information you seek may already be publicly available.

FOI requests must:

be made in writing to Yarra Valley Water;
provide sufficient information to enable the Yarra Valley Water officers to identify all relevant documents; and
be accompanied by an application fee, or a request for fee waiver or fee reduction due to hardship.

To lodge a FOI request, you may use this form below.

FOI request for documents (PDF, 307 KB)

Please send your complete form to [email protected], or by mail to:

FOI Officer
Yarra Valley Water
25-35 Lucknow Street
Mitcham VIC 3132

Costs of lodging a FOI request

From 1 July 2026, the application fee to make an FOI request is $34.50.

The payment for the application can be made electronically by EFT, using the following details.

Account Name: YARRA VALLEY WATER CORPORATION
Bank Details: WESTPAC, Shop 11, 33 Mahoney’s Road, Forest Hill, VIC 3131
BSB: 033-135
Account Number: 47-6808

Once you have made the payment of the application fee, please send the remittance advice to [email protected] and quote your ‘FOI Reference Number’ (if this has been provided to you) in your remittance.

If payment of the application fee would cause you hardship, you can apply for a fee waiver or fee reduction by providing evidence of hardship. That might include:

Health Card;
Concession/Pension Card; and/or
Statutory Declaration containing how payment of application fee would cause hardship.

You may be asked for further information to enable an assessment of your hardship application.

Under the Freedom of Information (Access Charges) Regulations 2014, access charges may also be applicable. This could include charges for search time, supervision, photocopying and other applicable charges.

The standard charges as at 1 July 2026 are:

$25.90 per hour for the search for documents
$0.20 per black and white A4 page.

Processing your FOI request

Once we have received your FOI request, we will review it to assess whether it is valid.

In this process, we will:

acknowledge receipt of your request electronically or via mail;
advise you of the FOI Reference Number assigned to your request;
advise you if we have received your payment of the application fee;
advise you if further information from you is needed. For example, if your request requires clarification, we will write to you to seek clarification and reasonably assist you to make a valid request; and
advise you if access charges are applicable and if so, the deposit amount that needs to be paid. You will also be given an opportunity to limit the scope of the FOI request with a view to reducing or eliminating the amount of access charges that may be payable.

Once we have a valid FOI request, we will then endeavour to process it within the required timeframe. You can contact us at [email protected] for an update on your request.

If any documents or parts of documents are considered by us to be exempt under the FOI Act, our written decision notice will provide you with the reasons for the decision. It will also explain your rights of review.

4. List of Publications and Reports

Many documents that Yarra Valley Water has published can be found through a search of our website.

This includes our:

5. Details of Procedures and Guidelines Used

Yarra Valley Water has policies and procedures related to our various functions.

A sample of our policies and procedures can be found on our website. These include: