24OIA2266
14 June 2024
Sarah Allison
[FYI request #26924 email]
Dear Sarah Allison
Thank you for your request made under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA), received on 21
May 2024. You requested the following:
Please provide a breakdown of the number of New Zealanders who currently have a student
loan about 60,000 NZD. Please group the data in 5k bands (i.e. 60,000-65,-0000 tight
through to 250,000+).
If possible (i.e. if both technically possible and not too demanding of staff time) please also
provide a gender breakdown, ethnicity breakdown and domestic vs overseas status.
Number of borrowers by income level and domestic vs overseas status
On 28 May 2024 we emailed you a link to information on Student loans published by the Ministry
of Education and asked you if this information is sufficient to fulfil for your request. As of 12 June
2024, we have not had a reply from you; therefore, we have made the following decisions on
your request.
As mentioned in the email of 28 May 2024, the Ministry of Education publishes annual statistics
relating to the Student Loan Scheme, including a breakdown of the number of borrowers in 5k
income bands. This data can be found by downloading the data set available at
: Student Loan
Scheme Annual Report 2023 | Education Counts.
The table relevant to your request is the one located on tab “F10”. This table outlines the number
of borrowers broken down in 5k income bands and whether the borrower is a New Zealand
based-borrower, or an overseas-based borrower. At higher borrowing amounts, 10k bands or
more are used due to the small numbers of borrowers in these bands, and the need to preserve
confidentiality.
Your request for a breakdown of the number of people who have a student loan and the
breakdown by income band and domestic vs overseas status is therefore refused under section
18(d) of the OIA, as this information is publicly available.
Gender and ethnicity information
Information on the gender borrowers identify with, and ethnicity is not held by Inland Revenue.
We consulted with the Ministry of Education (MoE) to see if it would hold the information by
gender or ethnicity and if they would accept a partial transfer of this request however, MoE
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24OIA2266
advised that it doesn’t hold this information, and that the information currently in the data set
is all they currently have available. Consequently, this part of your request is therefore refused
under section 18(g)(i) of the OIA, as the information is not held by Inland Revenue, and I have
no grounds for believing it is held by another agency.
In the dataset mentioned on the previous page, there is some data on gender, ethnicity, and
length of time to repay loans. This can be found in the tables T6 and T7. This data is extracted
by the Ministry of Education from the Stats NZ Integrated Data infrastructure.
Right of review
If you disagree with my decision on your OIA request, you can ask an Inland Revenue review
officer to review my decision. To ask for an internal review, please email the Commissioner of
Inland Revenue at
: [email address].
Alternatively, under section 28(3) of the OIA, you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to
investigate and review my decision. You can contact the office of the Ombudsman by email at:
[email address].
If you choose to have an internal review, you can still ask the Ombudsman for a review.
Publishing of OIA response
We intend to publish our response to your request on Inland Revenue’s website
(www.ird.govt.nz) as this information may be of interest to other members of the public. This
letter, with your personal details removed, may be published in its entirety. Publishing responses
increases the availability of information to the public and is consistent with the OIA's purpose of
enabling more effective participation in the making and administration of laws and policies and
promoting the accountability of officials.
Thank you for your request.
Yours sincerely
Estelle Le Lievre
Domain Lead, Performance and Reporting
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