IN-CONFIDENCE
30 November 2023
Flynn Owen
[FYI request #24775 email]
Tēnā koe Flynn Owen
On 17 November 2023, you emailed the Ministry of Social Development (the
Ministry) requesting, under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act), the
following information:
Please could you provide a data set specifying the number of people
claiming the following types of benefits by 2017 Area Unit Boundary:
- Job Seeker Support (JS Related)
- Sole Parent Support (SPS Related)
- Supported Living Payment (SLP Related)
- Other benefits
for the quarter/s ending September 2023.
We understand that benefit claimant figures lower than 5 will be
suppressed as per the criteria of section 9(2)(a) of the Official
Information Act and stipulations of the Privacy Act 1993.
This request is essentially a follow on request to job number IMSD-5348.
The data required is exactly the same as provided under this job number
but for the quarter/s specified above. As per our previous arrangements
we understand that a charge will be associated to the provision of the
data.
The data requested is the same as was previously provided to you for previous
quarters but for the quarter ending September 2023.
The relevant data has been compiled and is being released to you. Due to the
size of the data set requested, it is provided as an Excel spreadsheet in
Appendix one.
IN-CONFIDENCE
The Ministry is releasing this information to you in good faith, with the
understanding that a payment will be made as previously agreed, and as you
have noted in your request. You will receive an invoice in due course.
To protect confidentiality, the Ministry uses processes to make it difficult to
identify an individual person or entity from published data. These data tables
have had random rounding where, values have been randomly rounded to the
nearest multiple of 3. This is applied to all cell counts in the table. The impact
of applying random rounding is that columns and rows may not add exactly to
the given column or row totals. The published counts will never differ by more
than two counts.
You will note that the information regarding some individuals is withheld under
section 9(2)(a) of the Act in order to protect the privacy of natural persons.
The need to protect the privacy of these individuals outweighs any public
interest in this information. Cells with ‘S’ are those where data has been
supressed to protect identification of individuals and is applied to values less
than 6.
The principles and purposes of the Official Information Act 1982 under which
you made your request are:
• to create greater openness and transparency about the plans, work and
activities of the Government,
• to increase the ability of the public to participate in the making and
administration of our laws and policies and
• to lead to greater accountability in the conduct of public affairs.
This Ministry fully supports those principles and purposes.
If you wish to discuss this response with us, please feel free to contact
[MSD request email].
If you are not satisfied with this response, you have the right to seek an
investigation and review by the Ombudsman. Information about how to make
a complaint is available
at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi nui
Bridget Saunders
Manager Issue Resolution
Service Delivery
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