Dear Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment,

"I would like an extract of the annual amount spent with all suppliers for the 2021/2022 financial year.

I would like this data in an open format, csv or json formats would be suitable.

I would like the following details provided:

- Supplier Name
- Suppliers NZBN number (if available)
- Total Amount Spent

I believe this information would be readily available via an extract from your Accounts Payable system.

I have already received similar data from a number of Government organisations, which implies this information can be treated as open data. "

Yours faithfully,

Shane Gibson

Dear Ministerial Services,

Please provide the GST Exclusive amounts.

Yours sincerely,

Shane Gibson

Dear *OIA,

Disappointed you waited the full 20 days before replying that you would not be responding.

I am also disappointed my request has been denied I will submit a complaint to the Ombudsman to obtain this information.

To put this in context I have already received this information from a number of other agencies, so I am trying to understand why an agency such as yourselves would require substantial effort to extract this data and would refuse the request on this basis.

A number of these agencies have paid more suppliers than the 3,500 payees you quote and they have also redacted payments to employees and individuals. They have also managed to do this in the standard 20 working days.

Typically I would ask you to clarify the following questions:

- What financial system are you currently using which means you are not able to easily export this information?

- What is the estimated effort to make this data available?

- Where is the main complexity or effort which will result in the substantial effort to provide it?

But your OIA response has covered this already so thank you for that information.

In response I will note these points:

- the quoted "40,000 invoices" is irrelevant, I specifically asked for total spend so you could extract the summary information from your accounts payable system, and therefore remove any of the effort that relates to volume of invoices.

- "It is probable that some of the records will be duplicates". It concerns me manual effort is required for you to report on how much you have paid a given supplier in a given year.

- " just over seven weeks to complete" other agencies have checked more supplier records in a much shorter time period.

- "corroborate information with the MBIE business units which undertook the original purchases, to confirm specific details in the source records in our finance system." - Again I am very concerned that your Finance system is not the single source of truth for what you have paid suppliers.

- "finance system is TechnologyOne – CiAnywhere. In May 2022, MBIE migrated from TechnologyOne – Ci environment to TechnologyOne – CiAnywhere" This is great news as you will have the supplier balance extracts already available for the old system as part of the migration process.

As a result of your finance system migration I would be happy to receive two files, one from the old system and one from the new system.

- "the commercial interests of certain suppliers, where the release of their name and a total spend is specific enough to prejudice their commercial interests". I believe that the interest of the NZ public outweighs commercial interests of the organisations that received money from the public purse.

Given the number of NZ Government agencies that have already provided this information, I am very disappointed that MBIE as the procurement lead for all of government has taken the stance that the reporting of what NZ Government spends taxpayers money should not be made available publicly.

Yours sincerely,

Shane Gibson