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27/01/2026
Phil ip Fry
[FYI request #33185 email]
Tēnā koe Phil ip
OIA: GEMS-46227 – SMART procurement
Thank you for your email of 8 December 2025 to the Ministry of Education requesting the following
information:
Please provide the following information:
1. Al conflict of interest declarations, probity declarations, and conflict management plans
completed by Ministry staff, contractors, or advisors involved in the SMART procurement
process, including any declarations relating to Janison or its subcontractors.
2. The names, roles, and organisational units of all members of the SMART procurement
evaluation panel, including external advisors or contractors.
3. Al internal communications (emails, Teams messages, meeting notes) relating to potential,
perceived, or actual conflicts of interest declared or identified in relation to the SMART
procurement or Janison’s involvement.
4. The probity file and audit trail for the SMART procurement, including all probity advice,
conflict-of-interest checks, and compliance sign-offs.
5. Al communications (emails, meeting notes, Teams messages, agendas) between Ministry
staff and Janison representatives between 27 November 2023 and the awarding of the
SMART contract.
6. Al communications between the Ministry and Learning Matters relating to assessment,
data, PLD, or the SMART procurement.
7. A list of all contributors, reviewers, and sign-off authorities for the SMART business case.
8. Al gift, hospitality, or benefit declarations made by Ministry staff in relation to Janison,
Learning Matters, or any contractors involved in SMART development or PLD.
9. Employment or secondment history (limited to dates and organisations only) of any Ministry
staff involved in the SMART procurement who were previously employed by, contracted to,
or associated with Janison or Learning Matters.
Your request has been considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act).
The Ministry needs to extend the timeframe for responding to
parts one, three, four, eight and
nine of your request, pursuant to sections 15A(1)(a) and 15A(1)(b) of the Act, as these parts of
your request are for a large quantity of information, or necessitate a search through a large
quantity of information, and the consultations necessary to reach a decision on these parts of your
Wellington National Office, 1 The Terrace, Levels 5 to 14, Wellington 6011
PO Box 1666, Wellington 6140, DX SR51201 Phone: +64 4 463 8000
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request are such that a response cannot reasonably be provided in the original timeframe. You can
now expect to receive a response to those parts of your request on or before
4 March 2026, which
is an extension of 25 working days (please note that Waitangi Day is not a working day for the
purposes of the Act).
In response to
part two of your request, please refer to our response to your earlier request (OIA
1354236 refers) where this information was withheld from the Procurement Plan under
section 9(2)(a) of the Act, to protect the privacy of natural persons. As outlined below, if you are
dissatisfied with that decision, you have the right to complain to the Ombudsman.
We are refusing
parts five and six of your request under section 18(f) of the Act, due to the
substantial collation and research required to respond. Seeking to locate all communications
between Ministry officials and Janison Pty over a two-year period, and all communications with
Learning Matters on the broad topics identified over an indeterminate timeframe, would be a
significant administrative task to undertake and would require extensive searches across multiple
individuals and systems, followed by a detailed manual review of a large volume of material to
identify and extract relevant content. This would involve the diversion of Ministry resources for a
significant period across the Ministry’s Procurement, Curriculum and Ministerials functions,
impacting other Ministry operations.
Noting that your primary interest appears to relate to the SMART procurement process, we
considered inviting you to refine these parts of your request to be for communications between the
Ministry’s Procurement team and Janison Pty or Learning Matters in relation to the SMART
procurement process only. With respect to Learning Matters, we can confirm that there has been
no communication between the Procurement team and Learning Matters about the SMART
procurement process. With regard to Janison Pty, the Ministry’s Procurement Lead has in excess
of 500 emails alone potential y in scope of your request. We also note that key documents relating
to the SMART procurement process are, or wil soon be, publicly available.
As such, we do not consider that these requests can be clarified in a way that would enable a
substantive response to be provided. Nor do we consider that any of the other mechanisms
provided for in the Act (such as charging or extending the timeframe for response) would remove
the administrative barriers to responding to these parts of your requests.
We are refusing
part seven of your request under section 18(d) of the Act as, per our earlier
response to you (OIA1354236 refers),
The Single Stage Business Case: Standardised tool for
assessment and aromatawai (the Business Case), which contains this information,
is soon to be
publicly available. As advised previously, some information wil be withheld under section 9(2)(a) of
the Act, to protect the privacy of natural persons.
As a final point, at the time of writing this letter, the Ministry has received 14 requests from you in
short succession relating to SMART. While the Ministry is committed to meeting its obligations
under the Act, the number of concurrent and aligned requests from you is creating a significant
administrative burden, both for the central Official and Parliamentary Information team and the
small group of subject matter experts in the Ministry’s Curriculum and Procurement teams. Should
you continue to lodge multiple requests on the same or similar subject matters, the Ministry may
need to consider, in accordance with section 18A(2) of the Act, treating these as a single request
for the purpose of refusing on the grounds of substantial collation or research.
OIA: 46227
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You have the right to ask an Ombudsman to investigate our decisions on your request, including
the decision to extend the timeframe for responding to this request, in accordance with section 28
of the Act. You can do this by writing to
[email address] or Office of the
Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143.
Nāku noa, nā
Emma Drysdale
Manager Official and Parliamentary Information
Government, Executive and Ministerial Services
OIA: 46227
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