Alcohol purchases
Bob Johnston made this Official Information request to Ministry of Defence
The request was successful.
From: Bob Johnston
Dear Ministry of Defence,
Please tell me how much alcohol the Ministry has purchased each month for the last 12 months up to and including August 2017. Please include alcohol purchased on account by the Ministry or by way of invoices issued to the Ministry and also any and all alcohol purchased on credit cards issued to Ministry staff. For purchases on credit cards please include for each credit card used to purchase alcohol, the position title and position level of the cardholder within the organisation ie CE, or the various tiers below the CE, who approved the purchase (position title and level). For all purchases pleas include details of the reason for the purchases and how this accords with any policy the Ministry has in the purchase of alcohol with Ministry funds.
Yours faithfully,
Bob Johnston
From: Information
Ministry of Defence
Dear Mr Johnston
Thank you for your email. We acknowledge receipt of your Official Information Act request regarding alcohol purchases, and will respond to you in due course.
Kind regards,
Chelsea Heywood
Advisor, Ministry of Defence
show quoted sections
From: Information
Ministry of Defence
Good morning Mr Johnston
Please find attached the response to your official information request.
Yours sincerely
Adrian MacGregor
Principal Advisor, Ministry of Defence
show quoted sections
Things to do with this request
- Add an annotation (to help the requester or others)
- Download a zip file of all correspondence
Mr Rodgers left an annotation ()
I don't think you will get the granularity you are after.
When I worked for a govt dept we weren't given charge cards and if we were travelling, spent our own money and claimed it back. We were allowed a glass of wine or beer with our evening meal. So after a meal I would have a receipt for say dinner $30 + wine $10 = $40. I would claim for "dinner" @ $40 and provide the receipt. But I also might be claiming a lunch @ $15 and two cab rides @$35 each (all with receipts). So my claim for the trip "XYZ" would be $125.
Now I'm sure our account section would have checked the receipts to make sure I didn't spend the claimed $40 at the bar but I have my doubts whether they keep receipts to that level and my trip would have simply been recorded as XYZ - $125.
And even if they did, it would be a horrendous task to manually inspect every travel claim made by a staff member three levels deep to see if they did or didn't have a civilised glass of wine with their dinner..
Link to this