23 December 2022
Felix Lee
Via email: [FYI request #19370 email]
Tēnā koe Felix
Request for information: Eligibility for influenza vaccine in 2022
Thank you for your request dated 16 May 2022 under the Official Information Act 1982
(OIA) for information relating to the 2022 influenza vaccination program. Your request
was transferred from Manatū Hauora (Ministry of Health) to Pharmac on 2 June 2022.
You requested:
…any papers and advice you have on the groups of people eligible for the
free flu vaccine, and the decision regarding the expanded availability this
year.
Please find the information you requested attached to this email response.
Please note that we approach our assessment of requests for information under the OIA
on the basis that once we release the information to you it becomes available to any
other party in that exact form (whether by you distributing it to others or by virtue of us
receiving the same request from a different third party).
We have redacted a small amount of information from the documents as we consider
this is necessary to:
protect the privacy of natural persons (section 9(2)(a);
protect information where the making available of the information would be likely to
unreasonably prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is
the subject of the information (section 9(2)(b)(ii));
protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence or which any
person has been or could be compelled to provide under the authority of any
enactment, where the making available of the information would be likely to prejudice
the supply of similar information, or information from the same source, and it is in the
public interest that such information should continue to be supplied (section
9(2)(ba)(i));
maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the free and frank expression
of opinions by or between officers and employees of an organisation in the course of
their duty (section 9(2)(g)(i);
maintain legal professional privilege (section 9(2)(h));
enable Pharmac to carry on, without prejudice or disadvantage, negotiations,
including commercial negotiations (section 9(2)(j));
As required under the OIA, we also considered whether, in the circumstances, the
withholding of this information was outweighed by other considerations which render it
desirable, in the public interest, to make this information available. In this case we did
not consider that the public interest outweighed the reasons for withholding the
information.
I acknowledge that my previous response noted we would provide the documents as
soon as possible once consultation for their release was completed, and I apologise for
the lengthy delay in getting these documents to you.
Our team has been impacted by several staff absences. Although ideally someone else
at Pharmac should have been able to respond to your request, with relatively small staff
numbers, these absences have affected our response times and services. I apologise
again for providing an OIA service that, in this instance, fell below both our expectations.
Please note you have the right, by way of complaint under section 28(3) of the OIA to an
Ombudsman, to seek an investigation and review of our decision.
We trust that this information answers your queries. We are making our information
more freely available, so we now publish selected OIA responses (excluding personal
details) on our website. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this.
Nāku noa, nā
Allanah Andrews
Manager, Policy and Government Services
A1644304
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Document Outline
