4 August 2020
C124254
Shane Gibson
[FYI request #13280 email] Dear Mr Gibson
Thank you for your email of 11 July 2020, requesting information about Official
Information Act 1982 (OIA) requests received by Corrections. Your request is
being considered under the OIA.
You requested:
Please provide an extract of data from the system you currently use to
track information requests submitted under the Official Information Act
1982.
The extract should be in a machine readable form. This means either via a
publicly accessible API or file in csv or JSON format.
The extract should have the following details in a single row for each
request that was submitted:
•
The title of the request.
•
The date your organisation received the request
•
The date of the final response from your organisation to that request,
or the date you closed the request
Your request does not specify a timeframe and as currently framed, will be very
difficult to meet without substantial collation and/or research. An initial scoping
exercise has identified around 34,000 items of OIA correspondence logged in
Corrections’ electronic system since tracking commenced in 2005, which are
potentially within scope of your request.
Further, Corrections’ OIA tracking system generally includes the name of the
requester, and often the name or further personal information of other
individuals, within the title field.
To ensure the information we are providing is accurate and that we are not
breaching the privacy of anyone who may be named in the subject line of any
request, we would need to manually review a large amount of information,
which would impair efficient administration.
Therefore, unless your request is amended, it is likely that we will have to refuse
it under section 18(f) of the OIA, which applies where the information requested
cannot be made available without substantial collation or research.
We have considered whether to affix a charge or extend the time limit for
responding. However, given the scale of the request we do not consider that
this would be an appropriate use of our limited publicly funded resources.
In accordance with section 18B of the OIA, we would like to give you the
opportunity to amend or clarify your request in such a way as to make the
request in a form that would remove the reason for the refusal and enable
Corrections to respond.
If you are able to refine your request to the last five years, and exclude the
subject line, this may assist to refine the scope. Another option to consider
could be to refine your request to the last five years and replace the subject line
with the tracking number. Each piece of official correspondence logged by
Corrections has a corresponding tracking number, like the one on the front page
of this letter. In the latter instance, you would be able to request further
information on specific requests if they are of particular interest.
Should you be able to specify any changes to your request, you can do this via
email to
[Department of Corrections request email]. We will then endeavour to respond to your
request to the best of our ability.
You may also wish to note that information about the number of OIA requests
received by Corrections, and the proportion of those requests where legislative
timeliness requirements were met, are regularly reported through several
avenues.
Firstly, the State Services Commission publishes OIA statistics covering Crown
entities and government departments subject to the OIA every six months.
These statistics, which include Corrections and are available from the 2015/16
financial year period onwards, can be found at this link:
https://ssc.govt.nz/resources/official-information-statistics/ Secondly, information about Corrections’ OIA processes and timeliness has
been reported through the Justice Select Committee Annual Review process.
For information about the 2018/19 period, please refer to questions 55 to 61 of
this document
: https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-
NZ/52SCJU_EVI_92772_JU68556/374e38edd3edf6d8f40ee00040f5c75d2bf37
304
Corresponding Annual Review documents for previous years can be found at:
www.parliament.nz
Lastly, Corrections also reports information about the number of OIA and other
forms of correspondence received each year through our Annual Reports.
Corrections’ Annual Reports are available at:
https://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/strategic_reports/annual-reports I trust the information provided is of assistance. Should you have any concerns
with this response, I would encourage you to raise these with Corrections.
Alternatively, you are advised of your right to also raise any concerns with the
Office of the Ombudsman. Contact details are: Office of the Ombudsman, PO
Box 10152, Wellington 6143.
Yours sincerely
Robert Jones
Manager Ministerial Services
Corporate Services
