Good afternoon Mr Hanna,

 

Acknowledging receipt of your OIA request on 17 April, as below, regarding
OIA response time statistics.

 

We have passed this on to the relevant Unit for response, and you can
expect a reply on or before 16 May 2018.

 

Kind regards,

 

   

[1]http://www.justice.govt.nz/courts/shared... Alex Pickard
Advisor |
Official
Correspondence
Communications
Ministry of
Justice | Tāhū
o te Ture

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Hanna [mailto:[FYI request #7636 email]]
Sent: Tuesday, 17 April 2018 1:02 p.m.
To: correspondence, official <[Ministry of Justice request email]>
Subject: Freedom of Information request - OIA response time statistics

 

Tēnā koutou,

 

For the past four years, I have been keeping records of the time it takes
for various agencies to respond to requests I’ve made to them under the
OIA and LGOIMA via the website fyi.org.nz. I’ve noticed, over this
relatively small data set, that response times have fallen into three
roughly equal groups:

 

- Responses received before the due date

- Responses received on the due date (the majority of which are received
after 4pm)

- Responses received after the due date

 

I think this may be indicative of agencies disregarding the requirement
that responses to requests must be sent as soon as reasonably practicable.
However, this data set is relatively small and restricted to requests made
by a single person.

 

I am interested in accessing more complete datasets to see if my anecdotal
observations hold up. I am aware of statistics regarding OIA response
times that have been published by the State Services Commission for
2015/16 and for 2016/17, however the closest statistic in these sets is
the number or proportion of OIA requests “handled within the legislated
timeframe”.

 

Unfortunately, this measurement obscures the behaviour I am trying to
measure. If I applied the same measurement to my smaller data set, I would
find that 69% of requests were handled within the legislated timeframe.
However, that statistic does not reflect that fact that 45% of those
requests only received a response on the last allowable day.

 

Please release the following information, from 1 July 2017 to 30 December
2017, broken down by request:

 

1. The date on which the request was received.

2. The date on which the request was answered.

                2a. If the request was answered on the last allowable day,
the time at which the request was answered 3. Whether or not the request
was extended under section 15A of the OIA.

3a. If the request was extended, the date on which notice of the extension
was sent to the requester.

3b. If the notice of extension was sent to the requester on the last
allowable day, the time at which the notice of extension was sent to the
requester.

3c. If the request was extended, the duration of the extension.

4. The outcome of the request (e.g. all information released, transferred
to another agency).

 

Please provide all information in an accessible, searchable format. A
spreadsheet format, such as CSV or XLSX, is preferable for tabular data.

 

Please also explain any relevant caveats that should be kept in mind when
analysing this information, including the licence under which it is
released.

 

If any part of my request is unclear, please don't hesitate to contact me.

 

If any of the information that I have requested is unavailable or would be
difficult to retrieve, but similar information might be readily available,
I would be happy to discuss altering or refining my request.

 

I am aware that the time at which responses and notifications of
extensions were sent may not be recorded centrally and may be difficult or
impossible to retrieve. If extracting this information is likely to
require this request to be refused under section 18(f) of the OIA, please
let me know, as in that case I would likely be happy to refine my request
based on what information could be provided.

 

Ngā mihi,

Mark Hanna

 

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[2][FYI request #7636 email]

 

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Freedom of Information requests to Ministry of Justice? If so, please
contact us using this form:

[4]https://fyi.org.nz/change_request/new?bo...

 

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[5]https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

 

If you find this service useful as an FOI officer, please ask your web
manager to link to us from your organisation's FOI page.

 

 

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Hi Mark

Please find attached a response to your OIA request about OIA timeliness.

Cheers

Antony

Antony Paltridge
Team Leader (Media and External Relations) | Communication Services
Ministry of Justice
DDI: +64 4 918 8980
www.justice.govt.nz

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