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

Tēnā koe,

Thank you for your response to me request. I’m not certain that I correctly understand part of your response, I’d appreciate it if you could please let me know if my interpretation is correct.

Where you say that the statistics published on the State Services Commission website “are the only reporting that the Transport Agency has for this period”, and that “To provide information on individual OIA requests would require a staff member to access each individual request folder”, does that mean NZTA has no way of extracting aggregate information about OIA requests?

The fact that the SSC is able to report on both the number of OIA requests received by NZTA and the number of these requests which were completed within the statutory guideline implies to me that it is possible for some information to be retrieved without requiring a staff member going through each individual request folder. Or was that process also required when providing those statistics to the SSC?

I have sent similar requests to various other agencies, many of whom have released part of the information I have asked for. I understand, for example, that the time of day at which extension notices and responses were sent are rarely easy to extract without a time-consuming process similar to what you have described.

As I mentioned in my request, I am quite happy to discuss altering or refining my request if any of the information I have requested would be difficult to retrieve. I would much rather receive some of the information I have requested than receive nothing.

Ngā mihi,
Mark Hanna