50 Victoria Street
Private Bag 6995
Wellington 6141
New Zealand
T 64 4 894 5400
F 64 4 894 6100
www.nzta.govt.nz
4 March 2022
Guy
[FYI request #18264 email]
REF: OIA-9366
Dear Guy
Request made under the Official Information Act 1982
Thank you for your email of 20 January 2022 requesting the fol owing information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act):
* What were the reasons that reminders were sent late
* For the past 5 years please provide a breakdown, by month, of the number of reminders sent
each month and how many were late (sent after the registration had expired)
On 18 February 2022, we notified you that we required an extension of the original 20 working day
timeframe due to the consultations necessary to make a decision on the latter part of your request. We
further advised that a second response would be provided to you by 4 March 2022.
With regard to the latter part of your request, unfortunately, we are unable to provide historical counts
of vehicles identified for renewal notices (MR1) due to a system archiving process. The archiving
process uses a complex set of criteria which identifies and regularly deletes old data pertaining to MR1
notices.
Furthermore, while some data is available, it is incomplete and unreliable as a vehicle’s licence status
is updated every time a new licence is paid. This means that we are unable to produce an accurate
data set for MR1 notices as information is overwritten once the vehicle has been relicensed.
To provide you with context regarding how MR1 notices are generated, and dispatched, regular
reports are run from the Motor Vehicle Register that identify vehicles requiring a licence renewal within
the next four to six weeks. The report then creates a pending licence record which in turn generates
an MR1 notice. For registered persons who have provided an email address the MRI wil be emailed to
them and where there is no email address the MR1 wil be sent by post with an electronic file sent to a
mail fulfilment company, who then print and send the notices by standard post.
As the MR1s are sent as a courtesy rather than as a statutory obligation, they are not sent by
registered mail with a tracking number to identify when they were dispatched by post.
Where the registered person has provided an email address, the email MR1 function is automated,
and the notice wil always be generated and sent to the registered person’s email address within the
same timeframe as posted notifications.
To conclude, unfortunately, we are unable to provide complete and accurate historical data relating to
MR1 notices sent over the last five years for the reasons outlined above. Therefore, I am refusing this
part of your request under section 18(e) of the Act as the information you have requested does not
exist, or despite reasonable efforts to locate it, cannot be found.
Under section 28 of the Act, you have the right to complain to the Ombudsman about the decision to
refuse this part of your request. The contact details for the Ombudsman can be located at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
If you would like to discuss this reply with Waka Kotahi, please contact Ministerial Services by email at
[NZTA request email].
Yours sincerely
Galina Mitchelhill
Senior Manager, Research and Analytics
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