Communications, reports, documents, and papers, relating to FSAP and OBR.
Harry Smith made this Official Information request to The Treasury
The request was refused by The Treasury.
From: Harry Smith
Dear Treasury,
I request the following under the Official Information Act 1982
1. All internal communications, reports, recommendations and draft documents, relating to the findings of the IMF Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) reports, including technical notes on Contingency Planning and Crisis Management Framework, released in May 2017, and all communications with the IMF and Ministers of the Crown in respect thereof.
2. All research, communications and recommendations in respect of Crown retail deposit guarantees/insurance and wholesale bank guarantees since 1 January 2010.
3. All assessments, papers, advice (including internal and external legal advice), drafts in respect of Open Bank Resolution (OBR), including required/proposed amendments to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989, and fulfillment of any actions/recommendations determined by cabinet. This should include all working papers in respect of the Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIA) for OBR and any reassessment of that RIA as part of the revision of Financial Stability Department document BS11 (Outsourcing Policy).
4. All information, reports, policies in respect of crisis management planning relating to the failure of a large New Zealand bank, including scenario and strawman assumptions.
Furthermore, I seek the following specific papers
5. Paper to Minister of Finance on additional funding required to implement FSAP recommendations.
6. Paper to Minister of Finance seeking Cabinet approval to consult on OBR de minimis model.
I will send through confirmation of my eligibility to submit an OIA request privately, however I do not wish for those details to be referred to in any communications, furthermore I prefer to be contacted through my FYI.org.nz email address.
Awaiting your reply.
From: Sherida Charles [TSY]
The Treasury
Hi Harry
A response is attached regarding your Official Information Act Request.
Regards
Liam McCabe | Ministerial Advisor | The Treasury
Tel: +64 4 890 7435 | [1][email address]
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
The information in this email is confidential to the Treasury, intended
only for the addressee(s), and may also be legally privileged. If you are
not an intended addressee:
a. please immediately delete this email and notify the Treasury by return
email or telephone (64 4 472 2733);
b. any use, dissemination or copying of this email is strictly prohibited
and may be unlawful.
[UNCLASSIFIED]
References
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1. mailto:[email address]
From: Apurva Mahire [TSY]
The Treasury
Dear Harry
Please find attached an updated acknowledgement to your OIA request.
Thank you.
Warm Regards,
Apurva Mahire | Ministerial Advisor | The Treasury- Kaitohutohu Kaupapa
Rawa
Tel: +64 4 917 6308 Ext: 8308 | [1][email address]
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
The information in this email is confidential to the Treasury, intended
only for the addressee(s), and may also be legally privileged. If you are
not an intended addressee:
a. please immediately delete this email and notify the Treasury by return
email or telephone (64 4 472 2733);
b. any use, dissemination or copying of this email is strictly prohibited
and may be unlawful.
[IN-CONFIDENCE]
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1. mailto:[email address]
From: Kaja Stojkov
The Treasury
[UNCLASSIFIED]
Dear Harry Smith,
Thank you for your OIA request. It will be treated as having been received
on the 16^th of January, as per the Official Information Act, due to the
close down period over Christmas and the New Year.
I am emailing you to seek refinement and narrowing of your request.
Hopefully you find the information in this email helpful in doing so.
As it currently stands, some aspects of your request are too broad.
However, you may be able to narrow your request so that it is accepted,
and you still receive the information you require.
Regarding your first point:
1. All internal communications, reports, recommendations and draft
documents, relating to the findings of the IMF Financial Sector Assessment
Program (FSAP) reports, including technical notes on Contingency Planning
and Crisis Management Framework, released in May 2017, and all
communications with the IMF and Ministers of the Crown in respect
thereof.
A request for all internal communications would include all emails. This
is a very large task that would require substantial collation. This would
mean that, in its current form, your request would likely be refused under
section 18(f) of the Act.
May we suggest that you limit your request under 1. to advice to Ministers
on the FSAP reports.
Regarding your second point:
2. All research, communications and recommendations in respect of Crown
retail deposit guarantees/insurance and wholesale bank guarantees since 1
January 2010.
This time period covers eight years and is therefore also too broad. I
would suggest narrowing your time period significantly. Again, the request
for “all communications” is too broad, given the lack of specificity in
the subject: “deposit guarantees/insurance and wholesale bank guarantees”.
You could refine your request to Ministerial advice. If you choose to keep
your request subject in its currently broad form, it would also be good to
clarify whether by the “/” in your request you mean “retail deposit
guarantees/ retail deposit insurance” or if you are referring to insurance
more generally.
In respect of points 5 and 6:
5. Paper to Minister of Finance on additional funding required to
implement FSAP recommendations.
6. Paper to Minister of Finance seeking Cabinet approval to consult on OBR
de minimis model.
This part of your request is not sufficiently specific for us to determine
which papers you are referring to/ whether they exist. Could you let us
know where you saw these papers referenced, or alternatively their dates?
This could help us in determining what papers are being requested, if such
papers exist.
Kind regards,
Kaja Stojkov
Kaja (Katarina) Stojkov | Financial Markets | The Treasury - Kaitohutohu
Kaupapa Rawa
Tel: +64 4 917 7035| [1][email address]
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
The information in this email is confidential to the Treasury, intended
only for the addressee(s), and may also be legally privileged. If you are
not an intended addressee:
a. please immediately delete this email and notify the Treasury by return
email or telephone (64 4 472 2733);
b. any use, dissemination or copying of this email is strictly prohibited
and may be unlawful.
References
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1. mailto:[email address]
From: Ministerial Services Inbox [TSY]
The Treasury
Hi Harry
A response is attached regarding your Official Information Act Request.
Regards
Ministerial Services
The Treasury
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
The information in this email is confidential to the Treasury, intended
only for the addressee(s), and may also be legally privileged. If you are
not an intended addressee:
a. please immediately delete this email and notify the Treasury by return
email or telephone (64 4 472 2733);
b. any use, dissemination or copying of this email is strictly prohibited
and may be unlawful.
[UNCLASSIFIED]
From: Kaja Stojkov
The Treasury
[UNCLASSIFIED]
Dear Harry,
I am emailing you to follow up with your OIA request regarding
communications, reports, documents, and papers, relating to FSAP and OBR.
We have done some further research and have a number of updates for you:
Part 3
We would like to amend our previous advice where we noted that we had
transferred part 3 of your request to the Reserve Bank. The part we are
referring to is:
“3. All assessments, papers, advice (including internal and external legal
advice), drafts in respect of Open Bank Resolution (OBR), including
required/proposed amendments to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989,
and fulfilment of any actions/recommendations determined by cabinet. This
should include all working papers in respect of the Regulatory Impact
Assessments (RIA) for OBR and any reassessment of that RIA as part of the
revision of Financial Stability Department document BS11 (Outsourcing
Policy).”
As both the Treasury and the Reserve Bank will hold information relating
to your request, and the Reserve Bank has received the same request for
information, the Treasury has decided to retain this part of the request
and co-ordinate with the Reserve Bank regarding any overlapping
information. We have contacted the Reserve Bank to inform them that we
wish to retain this part of the request and they have agreed.
Parts 5 and 6
“5. Paper to Minister of Finance on additional funding required to
implement FSAP recommendations.”
We believe we have found a paper written by Treasury in response to a
Reserve Bank paper, that could conceivably fall within the scope of part 5
of your request. The intention is to release this to you subject to any
redactions considered appropriate, consistent with the provisions of the
Official Information Act.
“6. Paper to Minister of Finance seeking Cabinet approval to consult on
OBR de minimis model.”
We do not believe that this paper exists because the Minister of finance
has never sought cabinet approval to publicly consult on the OBR de
minimis model. Note that typically we refer to ‘public consultation’
rather than just consultation. If you are referring to some other type of
discussion when you use the word ‘consult’, please specify with whom you
believe something in the form of a consultation took place.
Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4
Regarding parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 a cursory search reveals that:
For part 1 there are in excess of 650 documents, at a minimum, and may
well be several thousand.
For part 2 there are in well in excess of 2000 documents.
For part 3 there are in excess of 150 documents
For part 4 there are in excess of 400 documents
In this form, your request will likely be rejected under s18(f) of the
Official Information Act on the basis that “the information cannot be made
available without substantial collation or research.”
Moreover, given the breadth of your request, we are struggling to
constructively advise you on how to refine it as we are unsure of the
number of papers that would result from the different narrowing options
that may be available. For example on further inquiry with respect to part
2 of your request, we are now aware there are well over 50 documents
comprising advice to the Minister since 1 January 2010, which means that
we are amending our previous advice since a response to your Part 2
request even on that restricted basis will still result in “substantial
collation and research.”
We urge you to call or email us to inform us of the specific information
you are interested in. This would help us to help you word your request so
that it results in a manageable search for documents.
In order to assist you in this regard we set out below information and
links documents that are already publicly available. Hopefully this
information will go some way to addressing your interests, or helping you
narrow your request further.
Regards,
Kaja Stojkov
Links to publicly available information
Part 1:
The then Minister of Finance Steven Joyce released a media statement on
the findings of the FSAP investigation into the New Zealand financial
system which can be found here
[1]https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/imf-....
The FMA’s media release can be found at
[2]https://fma.govt.nz/news-and-resources/m...
and the Reserve Bank’s dedicated page is
[3]https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/regulation-and-...
which includes links to bulletin articles they have written on the topic .
The briefing that the Treasury provided to the incoming Minister of
Finance Hon Grant Robertson on Financial Stability can be found on slide
10 of
[4]http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications...
.
Part 2:
The most recent work that was done on a potential retail deposit guarantee
scheme was a costing as part of election negotiations. This was
proactively released by the State Services Commission and can be found on
page 152 of
[5]http://www.ssc.govt.nz/sites/all/files/g....
There is also a lot of information on the Treasury’s website relating to
the historic retail deposit guarantee scheme. This information covers
topics such as historic eligibility and the regulatory impact statement.
It can be found at [6]http://www.treasury.govt.nz/economy/guar...
.
Part 3:
The Reserve Bank has a portion of their website dedicated to explaining
OBR, including a list of frequently asked questions at
[7]https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/regulation-and-...
It may also be useful to note that the Minister of Finance has recently
announced a review of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989. The terms
of reference can be found at
[8]http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications....
Phase I of the review will focus on Monetary Policy and the scope of phase
II of the review will be announced in the first half of this year.
Again, please do not hesitate to get into contact with us to discuss your
request.
Kaja (Katarina) Stojkov | Financial Markets | The Treasury - Kaitohutohu
Kaupapa Rawa
Tel: +64 4 917 7035| [9][email address]
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
The information in this email is confidential to the Treasury, intended
only for the addressee(s), and may also be legally privileged. If you are
not an intended addressee:
a. please immediately delete this email and notify the Treasury by return
email or telephone (64 4 472 2733);
b. any use, dissemination or copying of this email is strictly prohibited
and may be unlawful.
References
Visible links
1. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/imf-...
2. https://fma.govt.nz/news-and-resources/m...
3. https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/regulation-and-...
4. http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications...
5. http://www.ssc.govt.nz/sites/all/files/g...
6. http://www.treasury.govt.nz/economy/guar...
7. https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/regulation-and-...
8. http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications...
9. mailto:[email address]
From: Apurva Mahire [TSY]
The Treasury
Dear Harry
Please find attached a response to your OIA request.
Thank you.
Warm Regards,
Apurva Mahire | Ministerial Advisor | The Treasury- Kaitohutohu Kaupapa
Rawa
[1][email address]
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
The information in this email is confidential to the Treasury, intended
only for the addressee(s), and may also be legally privileged. If you are
not an intended addressee:
a. please immediately delete this email and notify the Treasury by return
email or telephone (64 4 472 2733);
b. any use, dissemination or copying of this email is strictly prohibited
and may be unlawful.
[IN-CONFIDENCE]
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
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