Justice Centre | 19 Aitken Street
DX SX10088 | Wel ington
T 04 918 8800 |
F 04 918 8820
[email address] | www.justice.govt.nz
15 May 2023
B. White
[FYI request #22051 email]
Our ref: OIA 103158
Tēnā koe Mr White
Official Information Act request: Fine information
Thank you for your email of 9 March 2023 to the Ministry of Justice (the Ministry), in which
you requested:
‘1 - Does the Ministry have a flag in it's databases for when the Ministry has been
informed that an address is no longer current?
2 - Does the Ministry have policies and/or procedures relating to how what it does
when it receives "Return to sender - not at this address" mail (or similar)? If so please
supply copes of these polices and/or procedures.
3 - Does the Ministry have policies and/or procedures relating to how what it does
when it receives other information regarding addresses not being valid (phone call,
email etc.)? If so please supply copes of these polices and/or procedures.
4 - If the Ministry does record information noted in 1 above, please supply a
breakdown of fines under administration - aggregating: count of individuals and $ value
by:
a) address status (marked as non-current vs not)
b) dollar size of fines outstanding by that individual in sensible groupings (less than
$50, $50-$100, $100-$500 etc.).
5 - Can you please also provide details of the count of letters sent in each of the last 3
financial years to addresses that the Ministry had received notice that it is no longer
valid at the time of sending.
6 - Please also provide an estimate of the cost of the above (again by financial year)’
Your request has been referred to me for response, as it falls within my responsibilities as
Group Manager for National Service Delivery, and is being managed in accordance with the
provisions of the Of icial Information Act 1982 (the Act)
In response to your first question, where the Ministry is advised that an address is no longer
current, the address wil be flagged as invalid so that further letters are not sent. The Ministry
actively works to locate and contact people who owe fines and/or reparation, through data
matching agreements with third party agencies and organisations. On occasion, the status of
invalid may be overwritten. This could be due to information received through data matching
or the address with the prosecuting authority not being updated, resulting in notices of fine
stil being sent to the invalidated address.
If you would like to know more, please contact the fines enquiry team by phone: 0800 434
637, or email
[email address]. In response to questions 2 and 3, I am refusing this part of your request under section
18(g)(i) of the Act, as this is considered judicial information. The courts are specifically
excluded from the Act under section 2(6)(a).
In response to question 4a and 4b, please refer to Tables 1 and 2 at the bottom of this
document. We have interpreted the timeframe of your request as the past three financial
years. Please note, that each financial year is based on the total outstanding balance as of
30 June of each year. Profiles and fines can be counted more than once if they stil have an
amount owing as of this date.
Questions 5 and 6 are refused under section 18(e) of the Act, as the information does not
exist. The Ministry does not hold information on mailing costs for dif erent categories of mail.
If you require any further information, please contact Media & Social Media Manager Joe
Locke at [email address].
Please note that this response, with your personal details removed, may be published on the
Ministry website at: justice.govt.nz/about/of icial-information-act-requests/oia-responses/.
If you are not satisfied with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the
Of ice of the Ombudsman under section 28(3) of the Act. The Office of the Ombudsman may
be contacted by email to [email address] or by phone on 0800 802 602.
Nāku noa, nā
Tracey Baguley
Group Manager, National Service Delivery
Table 1: Number of current and not current addresses by financial year
2019/2020 FY
2020/2021 FY
2021/2022 FY
Total number of
Total number of
Total # Profiles
Address Status
Profiles
Address Status
Profiles
Address Status
222,805
Current 223,063
Current 255,679
Current
272,150
Not Current 269,214
Not Current 267,254
Not Current
Table 2: Breakdown of fines groupings by financial year
2019/2020 FY
2020/2021 FY
2021/2022 FY
Total number of
Total number of
Amount Group
Fines
Amount Group
Total number of Fines
Amount Group
Fines
$0-$50 146,696
$0-$50
136,880
$0-$50 140,963
$50-$100 256,681
$50-$100
237,287
$50-$100 274,981
$100-$500 1,761,105
$100-$500
1,683,742
$100-$500 1,646,642
$500-$1,000 101,933
$500-$1,000
96,815
$500-$1,000 88,438
$1,000-$5,000 23,433
$1,000-$5,000 22,411
$1,000-$5,000 20,935
$5,000 + 7,708
$5,000 + 7,546
$5,000 + 7,135
