03 June 2020
45 Pipitea Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011
PO Box 805, Wellington 6140
Phone +64 4 495 7200
William Stewart
Fax +64 4 382 3589
Via Fyi.org.nz
Em
ail [email address]
fyi-request-12791-
Websi
te www.dia.govt.nz
[email address]
Tēnā koe Mr Stewart,
Your Official Information Act request OIA1920-0739
Thank you for your Official Information Act (the Act) request, which was received by the Department
of Internal Affairs (Department) on 6 May 2020.
You have requested:
1. The number of OIA requests requested by the Taxpayers Union, or their affiliates ie Auckland
Ratepayers Alliance, in the past 10 years
2. an approximate cost on either a per request basis or an overall basis for how much it costs to
deliver those requests e.g The average cost of each OIA request is $500, the TPU have asked
for 5,000 OIA in the past 10 years.
In response to question one of your request, I refer you to the table below setting out the annual
number of requests that are recorded to have been made to the Department of Internal Affairs by a
person who self-identified as an affiliate of the New Zealand Taxpayers Union.
The New Zealand Taxpayers Union was founded in October 2013. We have therefore provided data
for the period from the 2013/14 financial year to the date of your request.
Year
2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20
(To 06/05/2020)
NZTU requests
7
4
8
7
10
6
5
received
Caveats:
These statistics are based on information about requesters, recorded in our OIA tracking system.
Requester affiliation is not primary information the Department is required to hold or report on and
is not required for responding to an OIA request. Therefore, in some cases this information may not
have been recorded.
In response to question two, the Department is refusing your request in accordance with section
18(g) of the Act, as the information is not held by the Department, and we have no reason to
consider that it would be held by another agency or local body.
The Department operates a partially-centralised model for the management of OIA requests. Once
received, OIA requests are allocated across the branches of the Department for response, based on
the business functions of those branches. Responses are provided by subject matter experts
alongside their substantive roles. The number and complexity of OIA requests can vary. As such the
approximate cost per request or on an overall basis is not held by the Department.
If you have any feedback or questions about the Department’s response, please let us know at
[email address]
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or Freephone 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi
Cathrine Austin
Manager Governance, Risk and Assurance
Organisational Strategy and Performance
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