1/05/2024
Rep Albert
[FYI request #25943 email]
Tēnā koe Rep Albert
OIA: Rep Albert – Ministry employees working remotely from overseas.
Thank you for your email of 1 March 2024 to the Ministry of Education (the Ministry) requesting the
following information:
1. How many employees (permanent and fixed-term) are working remotely from overseas?
(Focusing on Fiji and Australia)
2. Which division or directorate those employees are assigned to? (Please list the
division/directorate and the number of employees working from overseas)
3. What is the business justification to have those employees working remotely from
overseas?
4. Which position within the Ministry approved the overseas remote work?
5. With the public service cuts, how do we justify having employees working overseas while
people in New Zealand wil lose their jobs?
Your request has been considered under the Of icial Information Act 1982 (the Act).
As of 1 March 2024, the total number of Ministry staff members working remotely from overseas is
four.
The divisions in which these employees are assigned to, or rather Business Groups (when
referring to the functions of the Ministry) are as follows:
• Te Pou Hanganga, Matihiko | Infrastructure & Digital
• Te Pae Aronui | Operations & Integration Group
• Te Pou Kaupapahere | Policy
Auckland – Botany/Manukau Of ice, Unit I, 16 Bishop Dunn Place, Flat Bush, Auckland 2013
PO Box 217046, Botany Junction, Manukau 2164 Phone: +64 9 265 3000
Given the very low number of Ministry employees working overseas, we are withholding all
information pertaining to their business justification under section 9(2)(a) of the Act, to protect the
privacy of natural persons. To release information of this nature would risk the disclosure of
personal information that could lead to identifying the employee(s) in question.
Since the date of your request, one of these arrangements has now ceased, another is due to
complete before 30 June 2024, a third is in arrangement that is in place while the individual works
out their notice period post-resignation, and the fourth is in a permanent role fulfil ing an extended
notice period.
With regard to
question four of your request, the decision to approve these requests to work
remotely from overseas ultimately sits with Hautū | Deputy Secretarys. With regard to the
arrangements listed above, the Hautū for the business units in question were the final approvers
for the arrangements regarding these four staff members working remotely from overseas.
As you can see from the numbers reported above, it is extremely unusual for the Ministry to have
employees working remotely from overseas. There is no single reason why this would happen, and
each employee’s circumstances and reasoning for working abroad would have been considered
and assessed on a case-by-case basis.
As required under section 9(1) of the Act, I have considered the public interest in releasing the
information withheld under section 9(2)(a) of the Act. I do not consider the public interest
considerations favouring the release of this information are sufficient to outweigh the need to
withhold it at this time.
Thank you again for your email. You have the right to ask an Ombudsman to review my decision
on your request, in accordance with section 28 of the Act. You can do this by writing to
[email address] or to Office of the Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143.
Nāku noa, nā
Zoe Griffiths
Hautū | Deputy Secretary
Te Pou Rangatōpū | Corporate
OIA: 1323998
