Reference: 20210504
23 November 2021
Matthew Hooton
[FYI request #17309 email]
Dear Matthew
Thank you for your Official Information Act request, received on 26 October 2021. You
requested:
all reports prepared by Treasury for Grant Robertson and/or other ministers
analysing the long 2020 and 2021 national and Auckland Covid lockdowns (26
March to 27 May 2020 and 17 August 2021 to today's date) using the 12 domains
and four capital stocks of the Living Standards Framework described at and from
the links at https://www.treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/nz-
economy/higher-living-standards/our-living-standards-framework
While the Treasury’s advice on a range of COVID-19 policies considers potential
impacts on various domains of wellbeing, the Treasury has not prepared a report that
analyses the specific impact of any given lockdown using the Living Standards
Framework (LSF).
More generally the Living Standards Framework is tool that supports the Treasury to
consider the broader impacts of our policy advice in a systematic way. This means we
use the LSF and He Ara Waiora in our work, but we do not specifically report against
these frameworks in every piece of advice.
The Treasury prepared a report in July 2020 that identified the impact of lockdowns
generally (among other aspects of COVID-19) on wellbeing using the LSF and He Ara
Waiora (a waiora framework built on te ao Māori knowledge and perspectives of
wellbeing). This report can be found here:
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2020-08/dp20-02-covid-19-impacts-on-
wellbeing-v2.pdf. The Treasury has also done work on the economic and fiscal impacts of recent Alert
Level decisions. The Treasury included an analysis of these impacts in its publicly
available 20 August 2021 Weekly Economic Update. This update can be found here:
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/weu/weekly-economic-update-20-august-
2021. In addition, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) will be
proactively releasing Alert Level decision-making Cabinet papers which pull together
advice from the Director-General of Health, the Treasury, and other agencies. This
information will be proactively released on the DPMC website here:
https://dpmc.govt.nz/publications/proactive-release-cabinet-material.
1 The Terrace
PO Box 3724
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
tel. +64-4-472-2733
https://treasury.govt.nz
Information publicly available
The following information is also covered by your request and is publicly available on
the Treasury website:
Item
Date
Document Description
Website Address
1. July 2020
Living Standards Framework
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/s
and He Ara Wairora. COVID-
ites/default/files/2020-
19: Impacts on Welbeing
08/dp20-02-covid-19-impacts-
on-wellbeing-v2.pdf
2. August 2021
Weekly Economic Update - 20
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/p
August 2021
ublications/weu/weekly-
economic-update-20-august-
2021
Accordingly, I have refused your request for the document listed in the above table
under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act, as the information requested is or
will soon be publicly available.
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
Chris Nees
Acting Manager, Economic Policy
2