Frivolous misinformation-laden or vexatious OIA requests
Andrew F made this Official Information request to Ministry of Health
The request was successful.
From: Andrew F
Dear Ministry of Health,
I have a few questions in regard to OIA requests made.
1. How many frivolous misinformation-laden or vexatious OIA requests have been made pertaining to the issues of vaccination and COVID-19?
2. How many staff hours have been expended to answer these OIA requests?
3. How does the MoH efficiently address such OIA requests?
Yours faithfully,
Andrew F
From: OIA Requests
Kia ora,
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Ngā mihi
OIA Services Team
[4]Ministry of Health information releases
[5]Unite against COVID-19
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From: OIA Requests
Kia ora Andrew,
Thank you for your request for official information. The Ministry's
reference number for your request is: H202114841.
As required under the Official Information Act 1982, the Ministry will
endeavour to respond to your request no later than 20 working days after
the day your request was received. If you'd like to calculate the
timeframe, you can use the Ombudsman's online calculator
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significantly higher volumes of queries and requests for information. If
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Ngā mihi
OIA Services
Government Services
Office of the Director-General
Ministry of Health
E: [2][email address]
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From: OIA Requests
Kia ora Andrew,
Thank you for your recent OIA request to the Ministry of Health on 22
October 2021 for:
1. How many frivolous misinformation-laden or vexatious OIA requests
have been made pertaining to the issues of vaccination and COVID-19?
2. How many staff hours have been expended to answer these OIA requests?
3. How does the MoH efficiently address such OIA requests?
As your request is currently worded, there is no timeframe listed for the
information you are seeking. Can you please confirm the timeframe for the
information you are interested in? I.e six-month period between 22 April
2021 to 22 October 2021, the date of your request?
Please note we only consider a request to be within scope of 'frivolous or
vexatious' if we had actually refused it under section 18(h) of the OIA.
Please confirm if this is the information that you are requesting?
Please respond by Tuesday 2 November 2021 so that we can consider your
refinement/clarification in our response to your request.
We look forward to receiving your response.
Kind regards,
OIA Services
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From: Andrew F <[FOI #17302 email]>
Sent: Friday, 22 October 2021 12:48
To: OIA Requests <[email address]>
Subject: Official Information request - Frivolous misinformation-laden or
vexatious OIA requests
Dear Ministry of Health,
I have a few questions in regard to OIA requests made.
1. How many frivolous misinformation-laden or vexatious OIA requests have
been made pertaining to the issues of vaccination and COVID-19?
2. How many staff hours have been expended to answer these OIA requests?
3. How does the MoH efficiently address such OIA requests?
Yours faithfully,
Andrew F
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From: Andrew F
Dear OIA Requests,
Thank you very much for your reply. Apologies for being too vague in timeframe. I would like to know from the period of March 2020 until 1 November with monthly breakdown. Though, if the Ministry holds the data for the number of OIA requests recieved, the number successfully processed, and the number rejected for each main rejection clause under the act, would requesting that by the monthly period specified above be an acceptable amended OIA request as this shows a larger dataset?
Yours sincerely,
Andrew F
From: OIA Requests
Kia ora Andrew,
Please see attached the response to your request.
Ngā mihi
OIA Services Team
[1]Ministry of Health information releases
[2]Unite against COVID-19
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References
Visible links
1. https://www.health.govt.nz/about-ministr...
2. https://covid19.govt.nz/
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Mark Hanna left an annotation ()
You likely realise this already, but this might not be an easy thing for MoH to answer. It's unlikely they categorise requests by the way you've asked them to differentiate them, which will mean they'll have to look at each request by hand in order to make a determination. And that itself may be difficult, given there may be some that ride the line in your definition.
In the latest release of OIA statistics gathered by the Public Service Commission, the Ministry of Health was reported as having completed 1,042 requests from 1 January to 30 June 2021. https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/resour...
There is the clearer measurement of requests that have been refused under section 18(h) of the OIA, in that they are frivolous or vexatious or the information requested is trivial, but from the requests I've seen MoH handle here on FYI that match what I think you're looking for I haven't seen any such refusals.
If the Ministry of Health refuses your request citing section 18(f), i.e. that the information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or research, you may find it a useful compromise to ask for a snapshot over a brief period of time (e.g. a week or a few randomly chosen days).
Link to this