15/03/2024
A Collins
[FYI request #25712 email]
Tēnā koe A Collins
OIA: 1322737 – The upcoming priorities of the Minister of Education
Thank you for your email of 12 February 2024 to the Ministry of Education (the Ministry) requesting
the following information:
1. Copies of all correspondence including but not limited to emails; letters; text, Whatsapp,
Signal, Telegram, and Microsoft Teams messages sent or received by the Ministry of
Education regarding the Minister of Education’s priorities, since 20 November 2023.
2. Copies of all advice, briefings, memos or any other documents received by Ministry of
Education staff or representatives regarding the Minister of Education’s priorities from the
Minister of Education or her office, since 20 November 2023.
3. Copies of all advice, briefings, memos or any other documents provided by Ministry of
Education staff or representatives to the Minister of Education or her office regarding the
Minister of Education’s priorities, since 20 November 2023.
Thank you also for your email of 29 February 2024 clarifying your request as follows:
I am seeking information related to the Minister's priorities for the remainder of the current
Government term.
Your request has been considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act).
The Minister of Education (the Minister) is actively considering her education portfolio priorities for
the remainder of the current Parliamentary term.
Correspondence and documentation relating to the Minister’s priorities have not been created in
isolation. This information has been generated in the context of wider policy discussions, meetings
and briefings. Attempting to identify and collate the information in scope of your request would
require the manual location, collation and assessment of a substantial volume of information and
would be a significant administrative task to undertake.
While we had hoped that inviting you to narrow the scope of your request might enable us to
provide a substantive response to your request, in attempting to collate the information in scope it
has become apparent that responding to your request would require substantial collation and
research and have a detrimental effect on the Ministry’s ability to carry out its core functions.
8 Gilmer Terrace, Levels Ground floor, 1, 2, and 6-14, Wellington
PO Box 1666, Wellington 6140 Phone: +64 4 463 8000
As required by sections 18A and 18B of the Act, we have considered whether extending, charging
and/or further consulting with you would enable a substantive response to be provided. However,
we do not consider that any of these mechanisms sufficiently mitigate the significant administrative
burden associated with attempting to provide a response. For these reasons, your request is
therefore refused under section 18(f) of the Act, as the information requested cannot be made
available without substantial collation or research.
In reaching this decision we have also been mindful that, if collated, a large portion of the
information in scope of your request would likely need to be withheld as the information likely to be
in scope of your request remains under active consideration by the Minister.
Thank you again for your email. You have the right to ask an Ombudsman to review my decision
on your request, in accordance with section 28 of the Act. You can do this by writing to
[email address] or to Office of the Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143.
Nāku noa, nā
Lorraine Monahan
Manager Ministerials
Government, Executive and Ministerial Services
OIA: 1322737
