Thank you for your email to the Ministry of Environment (the Ministry). 

The Ministry is committed to openness, transparency and accountability and
we are working to provide responses to correspondence and requests as soon
as possible.  

You will receive an acknowledgement of your request and we will advise of
expected timeframes for a response.  

Fulfilling our statutory obligations under the Official Information Act
1982 (the Act) is important to us. If you have made a request under the
Act and have not received an acknowledgement within one working day,
please contact [1][email address].  

Information about OIA requests during COVID-19 is available on the
Ombudsman’s website: [2]FAQs about official information requests during
COVID-19 | Ombudsman New Zealand  

If you have been redirected by an out of office message from a Ministerial
team member, an alternate Ministerial Services team member will be in
touch in the next 24 Hours.

 

Thank you for your patience.  Noho ora mai  

References

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2. https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/reso...

Kia ora Anna Chin,

Thank you for your Official Information Act request received on
19/10/2023.

We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible and in
any event no later than 20 working days after the day your request was
received. If we are unable to respond to your request by then, we will
notify you of an extension to that timeframe.

Please note the Ministry for the Environment will release responses to
selected OIA requests on our [1]OIA responses page shortly after the
response has been sent.

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact us at
[MFE request email].

Please note that this Taku Mahi inbox is not monitored.

Ngâ mihi nui

Ministerial Services Team 

Ministry for the Environment – Manatû Mô Te Taiao

Email: [MFE request email] Website: [2]www.mfe.govt.nz 

8 Willis Street, Wellington Central, Wellington 6011

References

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2. http://www.mfe.govt.nz/

Kia ora Anna,

 

I refer to your information request of 19 October.

 

1.       What level of funding over the last 12 months is going towards
activities and resources that are based on people's identity. Rainbow tick
procurement, paid staff time off learning Te Reo, time spent singing
karakia, cultural sensitivity classes, unconscious bias training etc?

2.       What level of funding is going towards jobs that are based on a
person's ethnicity, e.g. Maori directorate etc? Are there any special
advisory or cultural groups or boards that have been established by the
Ministry of its own volition and how much do these cost each year?

3.       How much has or is being spent on co-governance type policies or
arrangements?

4.       How many additional staff have been hired by MfE since 2017
(net)? How many FTEs would need to go to get it back to the last
government's level of staffing?

5.       In the draft BIM and October baseline update, and fiscal
sustainability request from the Minister of finance what savings have been
identified to date?

6.       Politically impartial, can the current leadership and staff
actually work with the incoming government and it's policy work or is
MfE's culture of hiring political activists mean that current leadership
is incapable of following new policy direction?

 

The Ministry has reviewed and assessed your request as it is currently
worded and has determined that we require clarification of three elements
of your request in order for us to respond in a helpful and timely manner.

 

First element for clarification: What level of funding is going towards
jobs that are based on a person's ethnicity, e.g. Maori directorate etc?

Please specify whether you are interested in our hiring policies or
practices and whether certain roles must be filled by specific
ethnicities; or whether you are interested in funding for business groups
within the Ministry which focus on matters specific to particular cultural
relationship or ethnicity or cultural group (e.g. Māori Crown Relations or
Te Tiriti o Waitangi settlement considerations).

 

Second element for clarification: Are there any special advisory or
cultural groups or boards that have been established by the Ministry of
its own volition and how much do these cost each year?

A range of publicly available information about Ministry working groups
was provided in response to [1]Question 9 of the 2023/34 Vote Environment
- Supplementary Estimates submission and in the related appendix,
[2]Appendix 2.

I invite you to review this publicly available information and then advise
whether this is the type of information you are interested in. If it’s
not, please provide us with further information about the types of groups
you are interested in and the subject matter they consider.

 

Third element for clarification: In the third point of your request, you
asked “How much has or is being spent on co-governance type policies or
arrangements.”

The [3]Auditor General defines co-governance as “arrangements in which
ultimate decision-making authority resides with a collaborative body
exercising devolved power, where power and responsibility are shared
between government and local stakeholders.”

Is this the definition of co-governance you are using? Is there an
alternate definition you would prefer to use? If so, please provide this
to us. Your preferred definition is essential to enable us to respond
accurately to your request.

It is worth nothing that the Auditor General’s definition is very broad
and would likely encompass a significant amount of arrangements as the
Ministry works closely with regional and local authorities on a number of
matters.

 

Depending on your response, we may either need to extend the timeframe for
making a decision on the request under section 15A of the OIA or consider
refusing certain parts of your request under section 18(f) of the OIA due
to substantial manual collation.

 

Ngā mihi,

 

George Bryson

Senior Advisor | Kaitohutohu Matua

Ministerial Services

Ministry for the Environment | Manatū Mō Te Taiao | mfe.govt.nz

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Anna Chin <[FOI #24471 email]>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2023 1:55 AM
To: OIA <[MFE request email]>
Subject: Official Information request - Wasteful spending and none-core
business

 

MFE CYBER SECURITY WARNING

This email originated from outside our organisation. Please take extra
care when clicking on any links or opening any attachments.

 

Dear Ministry for the Environment,

 

Under the Official Information Act what level of funding over the last 12
months is going towards activities and resources that are based on
people's identity. Rainbow tick procurement, paid staff time off learning
Te Reo, time spent singing karakia, cultural sensitivity classes,
unconscious bias training etc.

 

-What level of funding is going towards jobs that are based on a person's
ethnicity, e.g. Maori directorate etc. Are there any special advisory or
cultural groups or boards that have been established by the Ministry of
its own volition and how much do these cost each year.

 

-How much has or is being spent on co-governance type policies or
arrangements.

 

-How many additional staff have been hired by MfE since 2017 (net).How
many FTEs would need to go to get it back to the last government's level
of staffing.

 

-In the draft BIM and October baseline update, and fiscal sustainability
request from the Minister of finance what savings have been identified
todate.

 

-Politically impartial, can the current leadership and staff actually work
with the incoming government and it's policy work or is MfE's culture of
hiring political activists mean that current leadership is incapable of
following new policy direction.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

Anna Chin

 

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This is an Official Information request made via the FYI website.

 

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References

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2. https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ...
3. https://oag.parliament.nz/2016/co-govern...
4. mailto:[FOI #24471 email]
5. mailto:[MFE request email]
6. https://fyi.org.nz/change_request/new?bo...
7. https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

hide quoted sections

Kia ora Anna Chin,

 

Please find attached response to your OIA request, reference OIAD-827.

 

Ngâ mihi nui

 

Lachlan

 

Lachlan Brown ([1]he/him)

Team Leader

Ministerial Services
Ministry for the Environment – Manatû Mô Te Taiao

 

References

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