15 April 2026
OIAD-1764 and OIAD-1822
Phoebe Robertson
Tēnā koe Phoebe,
Thank you for your requests under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) of 25
September and 7 November 2025 (OIAD-1764 and OIAD-1822 refer) seeking data on
internal staff complaints at the Ministry for the Environment (the Ministry).
Following these earlier requests, the Ministry has identified that the information provided was
incomplete. Please accept my sincere apologies for this.
Following a further review and audit of our records, we identified an additional six internal
staff complaints within this period. Documentation relating to each of these complaints was
stored in the Ministry’s confidential files, however, they were not recorded in the Ministry’s
internal tracking spreadsheet, which was used to respond to the original requests under the
Act.
Since then, People and Capability has reviewed and amended the Ministry’s internal process
to ensure complaints are recorded accurately and consistently.
In line with this, we are reissuing our response to the parts of both of your requests that seek
data on staff complaints. I am providing this information to you in the format of Parts 1 to 5 of
your first request, with the data being from 1 July 2021 to 7 November 2025.
1. Total Complaints & Monthly Breakdown
The Ministry received 9 internal staff complaints between 1 July 2021 and 7 November 2025.
These are broken down by month received in Table 1:
Table 1: Number of complaints by month
Original data provided
Number of
Month
complaints
March 2022
1
1 (Note in the original OIA response this case had
been included, however further investigation has
July 2022
clarified this instance occurred in March 2022, so
this has been moved to row above)
May 2023
1
August
1
2023
link to page 2
September
1
2023
January
1
2024
April 2025
1
May 2025
1
June 2025
1
September
1
2025
2. Resolution Pathways
Table 2 provides a response to each of these questions. Please note that the outcomes
listed are not mutually exclusive for a particular complaint.
Table 2: Complaint
Complaint
Number of
For the complaints identified above, please advise:
complaints
How many were formally investigated
21
How many were informally closed, redirected, or deemed “resolved
6
without investigation”
How many were withdrawn by the complainant
2
Complaint
Number of
The outcome of each complaint, recorded in aggregated form
complaints
Outcome: No action (and/or withdrawn)
3
Outcome: Informal resolution
4
Outcome: Escalated to formal action or investigation
1
Outcome: Staff resignation or exit
1
How many complaints remained open or unresolved for longer than
Number of
6 months, and how many remained unresolved after 12 months
complaints
Remained open or unresolved for longer than 6 months
0
Remained open or unresolved for longer than 12 months
0
1 Please note one complaint was formally investigated, but was later withdrawn. This is why there is a
count of 10 in this section, but a count of 9 in the section below.
Of the complaints that were closed informally or not investigated,
how many were closed with no documented follow-up action or
8
engagement with the complainant?
3. Time to Resolution
Of the complaints the Ministry has closed to date, both formal and informal matters were
active for an average of 3 months and a median of 3 months from receipt through to final
resolution or closure.
Complaints that underwent a formal investigation took an average of 1.5 months, while those
resolved informally were resolved in an average of 3.5 months.
4. Complaint characteristics
I am continuing to withhold the number of complaints broken down by ethnicity of the
complainant under section 9(2)(a) of the Act to protect the privacy of natural persons. As the
number of complaints is low, releasing this information alongside other data such as the
monthly breakdown and business group could risk identifying individual complainants.
Table 3 below provides data to answer the remainder of these questions. Please note that
the business group structure of the Ministry changed on 1 December 2023 as part of a wider
restructure, so I have noted where a business group is no longer active.
Table 3: Complaint characteristics
Complaint characteristic
Number of complaints
Business Group
Policy Implementation and Delivery (no longer active)
2
Business Transformation and Services
1
Climate Change Mitigation and Resource Efficiency
3
Organisational Performance (no longer active)
1
Tūmatakōkiri
2
Nature of complaint
Bullying and Harassment
5
Internal Relationship issues
2
Complaint H&S & Well-being concerns
1
Psychologically unsafe environment
1
Other characteristics
Involved the conduct of a manager or team leader
6
The complainant exited the Ministry within 12 months of the
6
complaint being made
5. Multiple Complaints & Repeat Concerns
I have not identified any recorded instances of individuals, including those in managerial or
leadership roles, being the subject of more than one complaint during the requested period.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Office of the Ombudsman of
my decisions relating to these requests, in accordance with section 28(3) of the Act. The
relevant details can be found a
t: www.ombudsman.parliament.nz. Please note that due to the public interest in our work, the Ministry publishes responses to
requests for official information shortly after the response has been sent on our website at:
https://environment.govt.nz/about-us/official-information-act-requests/. If you have any
queries about this, please feel free to contact our Ministerial Services team at:
[email address]. Nāku noa, nā
Juliet Macdonald
General Manager – People and Capability
Ministry for the Environment | Manatū Mō Te Taiao
