45 Pipitea Street
18 November 2020
Wel ington
Phone 0800 25 78 87
dia.govt.nz
G S
[FYI request #14108 email]
Tēnā koe G S,
Your Official Information Act request, reference OIA2021-0275
Thank you for your email of 11 November 2020 requesting the fol owing information under the
Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):
•
any advice provided to the Minister of Local Government from the 2017 election through to
today on Māori wards in local government; and
•
any internal policy development documents created since the 2017 election through to today
on Māori wards in local government.
We intend to provide you with documents containing advice provided to the Minister of Local
Government about Māori wards in local government. For the second part of your request, we have
interpreted your request for
internal policy development documents as any departmental reports,
papers/articles, and PowerPoints used as part of policy development on Māori wards in local
government since the 2017 election through to 11 November 2020.
If you feel we have not interpreted your request correctly, please contact us urgently to discuss this
further. You can contact Hilary Richards by email
at [email address] or by telephone on
04 494 0589.
The Act requires that we advise you of our decision no later than 20 working days after the day we
received your request. Unfortunately, it wil not be possible to meet that time limit and I am
extending the time to make our decision by 8 working days to 21 December 2020.
I am making this extension subject to section 15A(1)(a) of the Act because of the need to search
through a large quantity of information. The Department wil endeavour to provide you with the
decision prior to this date if possible.
You have the right, under section 28(3) of the Act, to make a complaint to an Ombudsman and seek
an investigation and review of my decision to extend the deadline for a response. The contact
address is: Office of the Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143. Alternatively, you can phone
0800 802 602 or email [email address].
Nāku noa, nā
Anita Balakrishnan
Director Ministerial Advice, Monitoring, and Operations
