Reference: 20210404
27 October 2021
Ross Francis
[FYI request #16558 email]
Dear Ross
Thank you for your Official Information Act (OIA) request, received on 30 August 2021.
You requested:
…copies of all information, including but not limited to any briefings or advice
supplied to the Government, about the estimated cost of lockdowns, dated
between 1 January 2020 and 27 August 2021.
The Government has created a $62.1 billion Covid-19 recovery fund. Where has
the money for the $62.1 billion fund come from, and what proportion of the fund
has come from Government revenue via general taxation?
How much of the fund has been spent?
Please specify the fund's spending so it is clear where spending has been
focused and which organisations, companies or projects have received funds.
Without the Covid-19 recovery fund, approximately how many jobs has the
Treasury estimated might be lost?
…copies of all information, including but not limited to any briefings or advice
supplied to the Government, about the estimated number of job losses due to
lockdowns, dated between 1 January 2020 and 27 August 2021.
The time to respond to your request was extended by 40 working days.
The information you have requested can largely be found on publicly available
websites. I have provided links to the relevant websites in the letter below, as well as
some additional context. Accordingly, I am refusing your request under section 18(d) of
the OIA:
the information requested is or will soon be publicly available.
1 The Terrace
PO Box 3724
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
tel. +64-4-472-2733
https://treasury.govt.nz
Balance of the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund and list of funding decisions As part of Budget 2020, the Government established the COVID-19 Response &
Recovery Fund (CRRF). This set aside $50 billion to support a response to and
recovery from COVID-19. The Government announced on 16 September 2021 that a
further $7 billion would be made available to fund economic support measures and
other COVID-related costs.
The Treasury maintains a webpage on funding and expenditure on the COVID-19
pandemic
COVID-19 funding allocation and expenditure (treasury.govt.nz). This
webpage contains information on how much funding the Government has signalled for
the response to and recovery from COVID-19, as well as how much of this funding is
yet to be allocated. As at Budget 2021 (20 May 2021), the remaining balance of the
CRRF is $5.1 billion.
The webpage also contains links to various documents that outline the initiatives that
CRRF funding has been allocated to. These are:
A list of announced initiatives funded from the CRRF as part of Budget 2020 (in
May 2020) –
Summary of Initiatives in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery
Fund (CRRF) Foundational Package
A list of announced initiatives funded through the July 2020 Package –
Summary of
Initiatives in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund (CRRF) July Package
A list of initiatives agreed through Budget 2021, including those funded from the
CRRF –
Wellbeing Budget 2021: Securing Our Recovery (at pages 53 to 109)
A list of other initiatives not included in the above documents –
How much is left in
the COVID Recovery and Relief Fund? (OIA-20210151).
In addition, Treasury has previously released information regarding reporting on the
CRRF, which can be found at
COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund Reporting
Information Release (treasury.govt.nz).
Source of the funding allocated to the CRRF
The latest information on the Government’s fiscal position and borrowings can be found
in the Treasury’s 2021
Budget Economic and Fiscal Update Budget Economic and
Fiscal Update 2021 (treasury.govt.nz). The Treasury publishes a number of different
debt indicators for financial reporting purposes. The Government currently uses net
core Crown debt as a key fiscal indicator when communicating its fiscal strategy.
The funding set aside for the CRRF flows through to the level of net core Crown debt of
the Government. This fiscal indicator illustrates the overall level of borrowing in any
given year that may be required to meet the Government’s operating and capital
spending intentions, where they cannot be met from cash received by the Crown (e.g.
from tax receipts). The borrowing requirements for the Government are done at an
aggregate level and are not allocated to specific spending initiatives such as the CRRF.
2
Following the move to Alert Level 4 on 17 August, the Government put in place a range
of support measures. Please see Table 1 below that outlines the amounts disbursed
through the Wage Subsidy Scheme (WSS) (for the period 17 August to 31 August)1,
and for the Resurgence Support Payment (RSP) (for the period 17 August to 7
October). The reason for the difference in time period is because the Wage Subsidy
Scheme is paid on a fortnightly basis, while the Resurgence Support Payment is paid
on a three-weekly basis.
Table 1: Cost of Wage Subsidy Scheme and Resurgence Support Payment between
17 – 31 August 2021 paid as at 19 October:
Amount disbursed ($, million)
Wage Subsidy Scheme
1,324
Resurgence Support Payment
615
Total
1,939
While Alert Level 4 generated some fiscal costs beyond the WSS and RSP, these two
schemes account for the majority of COVID-related spending during this period.
Further information on the funding allocated for each specific COVID initiative funded
from the CRRF will be released by the Treasury alongside the Half-Year Economic and
Fiscal Update in December 2021, and this will be made available on the Treasury’s
website at
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/budgets/forecasts2 With regard to employment please see the following report:
Treasury Report
T2020/973: Economic scenarios - 13 April 2020. This quantified the estimated impact
on unemployment before and after the support.
Please note that this letter (with your personal details removed) and enclosed
documents may be published on the Treasury website.
This reply addresses the information you requested. You have the right to ask the
Ombudsman to investigate and review my decision.
Yours sincerely
Reubhan Swann
Manager, Ministerial Advisory Service
1 Paid as at 19 October 2021
2 Please note that these figures will not take into account any existing funding which government
departments chose to reprioritise in response to Alert Level 4.
3
