IN-CONFIDENCE
27 October 2023
John Walter
Tēnā koe John Walter
On 7 October 2023
, you emailed the Ministry of Social Development (the
Ministry) requesting, under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act), the
following information:
On the WINZ website, the food suppliers are listed but not all other
retailers for using payment cards. Please provide the full list of stores
that payment cards can be used at.”
Your request for a list of the Ministry’s payment card suppliers has been refused
in full under section 18(f) of the Official Information Act 1982, on the basis
that the information requested cannot be made available without substantial
collation or research.
To provide you with the full list of registered suppliers for the payment card,
the Ministry would need to divert personnel from their core duties and allocate
extra time to complete this task. This is due to the extremely large number of
suppliers in our systems and Ministry staff would have to manually review this
information to find the relevant information in scope of your request. The
diversion of these resources would impair the Ministry's ability to continue
standard operations and would be an inefficient use of the Ministry's resources.
As such, your request is refused under section 18(f) of the Act, as the greater
public interest is in the effective and efficient administration of the public
service.
I have considered whether the Ministry would be able to respond to your
requests given extra time, or the ability to charge for the information
requested. I have concluded that, in either case, the Ministry's ability to
undertake its work would still be prejudiced.
The principles and purposes of the Official Information Act 1982 under which
you made your request are:
• to create greater openness and transparency about the plans, work and
activities of the Government,
• to increase the ability of the public to participate in the making and
administration of our laws and policies and
• to lead to greater accountability in the conduct of public affairs.
IN-CONFIDENCE
This Ministry fully supports those principles and purposes. The Ministry
therefore intends to make the information contained in this letter and any
attached documents available to the wider public. The Ministry will do this by
publishing this letter and attachments
on the Ministry’s website. Your personal
details will be deleted, and the Ministry will not publish any information that
would identify you as the person who requested the information.
If you wish to discuss this response with us, please feel free to contact
[MSD request email].
If you are not satisfied with this response regarding the Ministry’s payment
card information, you have the right to seek an investigation and review by
the Ombudsman. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi nui
Sarah Quigan
Manager
Official Information
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