Published Official Information Act responses

Date

Request

Response

A table/list of your organisation’s pay bands with the Step Range (Band), Minimum and Maximum salaries (See attached for an example).

• A table/list of each staff member (by job title) who is permitted to spend salaried time for the purpose of union organisation, advocacy or other union activity, whether on a full time or part-time basis. Please include the number of paid hours per month permitted for such activity, the job title and the salary band (or step range band, e.g., B, D, E, F etc) for each role.
• Please do not include information where the only involvement is regular staff who are union members being entitled to attend occasional union meetings.
• Please indicate how much money was paid to any unions by your organisation in 2022, 2023, 2024 so far, and any planned payments for the remainder of 2024. (Do not include payroll deductions of Union membership dues).
• For each payment, please outline the recipient, value and purpose of the payment.
• Please indicate whether any Union or their staff, or any MBIE staff member employed for the purpose of union organisation or administration is permitted to use any office space owned/leased by your organisation, if so how often are they permitted to use it (ie is it on an ad hoc basis, part time (how many hours per week/month), or full time.
• What is the area of the office space that Unions are permitted to use.
• What rent (if any) is charged for use of the office space?

1. A list of all job titles of staff members who have access to a credit card assigned to them or their job. If there are multiple staff members with the same job title who have access to a credit card, please indicate how many staff members hold that title.
2. The number of credit cards that are shared among multiple staff members. For each shared credit card, please provide a list of the staff members who have access to it.

1. How many roles have been or will be disestablished overall? How many have been established?
2. Any communication internally regarding concerns on the impact to the frontline from March 1 to August 16 2024
3. Any communication between management and leadership regarding leaks around the change process, from March 1 to August 16 2024
4. All communication between the CE and the Minister from March 1 to August 16, 2024 regarding the change process.
5. How much has been spent on leadership leaving/arriving events or parties in 2024?
6. How much has been saved on the contractors and consultant spend through the change process?
7.  How many times was the counselling service used between March 1 to August 16 2024, compared to the same time in 2023?
8. The change process decision document
9. Any reviews conducted after the change process was implemented, regarding the change process.

Does Social Investment Agency pay for advertising services on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Google, TikTok or any other digital platform?

• If so, how much money has been spent, by year, on advertising on each of these platforms?
• Does Social Investment Agency use any agencies to place or manage that advertising, if so, who?

If Social Investment Agency uses any agencies to place or manage that advertising, what is (or are) the names of each of those agencies?

• If Social Investment Agency uses any agencies to place or manage that advertising, please provide copies of any and all legal agreements between that advertising agency and Social Investment Agency.
• If Social Investment Agency uses advertising on digital platforms as above, does (or has) the agency created “custom audience” lists as part of those campaigns?
• If so, please provide a list of the custom lists that have been generated, including the number of people on that list and what market segmentation was being targeted by that campaign and the date for which each custom audience lists were uploaded and to which platform?
• If so, what privacy analysis was conducted prior to custom audience lists being generated?
• If so, was the Minister responsible ever made aware that Social Investment Agency was undertaking this activity? If so, which Minister was it, and when were they notified?
• If so, what advice was sought prior to this activity taking place?
• If so, what lawful basis does Social Investment Agency rely on for this disclosure?
• If so, what was the origin of the information that was included in these custom lists?
• If so, did the Social Investment Agency receive any specific advice as to the efficacy of the security measures around these lists, if so, who provided this advice and when was it provided? Please provide copies of advice provided.
• If so, what security measures are used to protect the privacy of individuals?
• If so, is Social Investment Agency still generating and uploading custom audiences, or is this practice “on hold”. If it is on hold when and why was it put on hold?
• If so, can people opt-out of being included in these custom audience lists and if so, how many people have done so?
• If so, has Social Investment Agency received any complaints about this practice, if so, when was the complaint received? Please provide copies of the complaints and any responses.
• If so, did Social Investment Agency consult with the office of the Privacy Commissioner on this practice? If so, when?
• If so, has Social Investment Agency received any reports about the effectiveness of custom lists? If so, please provide these.
• If so, for each upload of the custom audience lists to each platform, what percentage of these were “matched” against the current users of each platform?

Has any person from Social Investment Agency had any meetings, whether in person, via videoconference or other method, with any representatives from Meta, Google, LinkedIn, TikTok, or any digital advertising platform in the last 12 months?

• If so, who was present during these meetings?
• If so, please provide the agenda, notes, minutes or any communications associated with these meetings.
• Does Social Investment Agency have a dedicated account manager with Meta, Google. LinkedIn, TikTok or any other digital platform. If so, what is the name of this person or the names of these people?

Please provide any correspondence, email, document or record held by Social Investment Agency on the subject of custom audience lists, advertising on Meta, Facebook. Instagram, Google or TikTok or any platform for the period 1 September 2024 and today.

The meeting held of the Covid Steering Group 2nd of November. They state "The Social Welfare Agency is analysing data to inform us about the unvaccinated population”

1. Can you amplify on this, what data did the social welfare agency provide the Covid Steering group on the 'Unvaccinated Population’ Please give what data was provided to the steering committee or results of this analysis. How and who had their vaccination status provided the social welfare and analysed? (screen shot below)
2. Was the data Social Agency analysed on the 'Unvaccinated Population" only Social Welfare clients or
   those not clients of social welfare?

• The total budgeted for Christmas/New Year bonuses to staff this year.
• If this will not be the same across each role please break this down by pay grade and the total for each grade.
• If you do not reward by pay grade but some other method please specify this and give a breakdown of this.

• The number of directly employed staff currently working at your public service department, departmental agency, or wider state sector entity.
• The number of directly employed staff and their positions who earn less than $27.80 per hour (excluding all allowances or overtime rates).

Is your agencies continuing to pursue the carbon neutral public service targets?

• If so please provide any documents showing how this is being implemented

The total spend on this target broken down by year since the targets were implemented (including but not limited to internal staff numbers, external spend, capital spend, offset spend)?

Total EV’s brought since the targets were implemented broken down by year?

• Please provide notes on type of car.

Total spent on agency emissions inventories by year since implementation.

• Please provide the most recent inventory.

How much is spent on voluntary carbon offsets? (Not the ETS)

• Please provide information on consultants for this and the total offsets.

Any consideration or actions involving Agricultural emissions.

The [Left Behind: How do we get our chronically absent students back to school?] report notes that chronically absent students are:
“Four times as likely to have a recent history of offending,” with 4 percent of chronically absent students having such a history, compared to less than 1 percent of all students. Could you clarify how this link was established? Specifically:

• What data from schools was used to link students to their offending history?
• Which agency provided the “history of offending” information, and what specific data points did it contain?
• How were individual students identified and matched across datasets for attendance and offending history?
• What measures were in place to ensure students’ privacy in this data linkage?
• Under what authority did the ERO access this data?

“Four times as likely to live in social housing,” with 12 percent of chronically absent students living in social housing, compared to 3 percent of all students. Could you explain how this data link was determined? Specifically:

• What data was used to connect attendance information to students' social housing status?
• Which agencies were involved in sharing this information?
• What specific data about social housing was provided to ERO?

“At age 23, young adults who were chronically absent cost $4,000 more than other young people,” with particular costs noted in corrections, hospital admissions, and receiving benefits. Could you specify:

• What data was used to link student attendance information with hospital admissions, corrections, and benefit receipt data?
• What specific data points were shared to determine the cost differences?
• Which agencies were involved, and what data was exchanged?
• How was privacy maintained in the data-sharing process for these individuals
• Additionally, were students or their caregivers informed and asked to provide consent before any of this data was shared across agencies for the purposes of this report?

All advice or briefings the agency holds, specifically documents provided to the Minister but also documents provided to other agencies related to reviewing family violence/sexual violence services/funding since 27 November 2023 to date.

I understand your agency undertook research into groups and circumstances of those who were unvaccinated during 2021 and possibly 2022.
Please provide information to show:

1. who commissioned and who funded this research, and who it was provided to
2. it appears that the research assumes there was some benefit from vaccination. Please provide the information to show all such underlying assumptions and any evidence relied on to justify these assumptions,
3. please provide any analysis or other information about any human rights, medical or legal risks identified when vaccinating with a product such as "comirnaty" that had only conditional provisional consent from the medicines regulator "Medsafe", and longer term risks due to the absence of long term studies on safety and efficacy, how to avoid or manage identified risks such as myocarditis and pericarditis and any assessment of risk/benefit of vaccination for different sectors of the community including those with health immune systems and those at low risk from covid, and also risks for those with fragile immune systems and risk of reduced immunity for other diseases after injections with Comirnaty
4. please provide any follow up recommendations or outcomes from your research on this matter and any related correspondence including and recommendations for further research.

Here’s a recent situation(external link) that got me thinking if this is happening in NZ?

• Are pregnant women being tracked?
• I understand there’s a drive to ‘target’ social investments in NZ and Andrew Coster is leading this effort yet details on HOW this will/does happen aren’t clear.
• Please can you describe how this agency will target social investment support and the safeguards in place?
• Is the SIA using predictive analytics and how?
• Does SIA draw from or use facial recognition technology to collect data
• Has a thorough and exhaustive privacy impact assessment been completed and where can I find it?

1. How does your organisation define Māori data as opposed to non-Māori data?
2. Does your organisation have Māori Data Sovereignty and or a Māori Data Governance policy or strategy? If yes, I request a copy.
3. I also request a copy of your organisation Data Governance strategy/policy/policies?
4. Has your organisation had with any success or no/limited success, implementation of any Māori Data Sovereignty Principles or Māori Data Governance?
   If yes, please provide details of the implementation and how you measured its success.
5. How many .fte are allocated to Māori Data practices in your organisation?
6. What country/countries are the majority of your organisation’s data stored?
7. Which Cloud Provider(s) do you use?

I would like to request a copy of the following reports which are listed on your website but do not have any link or file attached to them

• SIA242562 - Briefing: Social Investment Fund Purpose and Design Principles
• SIA242539 - Briefing Design of Social Investment Fund

I would also like to request copies of all of the fortnightly provided between the dates of 2 August 2024 and 13 January 2025.

Titles of reports provided from the Social Investment Agency to the Minister for Social Investment from October 2024 to February 2025.

The agency's total redundancy spend from November 1, 2023 to today - 19 May 2025, by month, in a table.

Please also provide monthly numbers around confirmed job cuts at the agency from the same timeframe, and also, the total cost savings the restructures have realised - including in reducing staff and other matters.

Please also confirm any future cost saving initiatives that are planned, including restructures, and what the timeframe[s] of those are - including around your Budget 2025 savings targets.

1. All advice, briefings and memos sent to Inland Revenue by your Ministry prior to the release by Inland Revenue of the Taxation and the non-for-profit sector paper as issued on 24 February 2025 (“the Issues Paper”);
2. All advice, briefings and memos given to any Minister or government agency in connection with the Issues Paper including:
   a. any and all facts, figures and advice on the estimated impact on not-for profit organisations as a consequence of implementing the Tax;
   b. any and all facts, figures and advice on the estimated revenue as a consequence of implementing the Tax;
   c. any and all facts, figures and advice on the estimated administrative costs of implementing the Tax;
   d. any examples of other jurisdiction, including their relevance to the New Zealand charities sector; and
3. Any communications between Minister Willis and Minister Watts concerning the Tax or the Issues Paper.

Under the Official Information Act 1982, I am making a request for the following information held on record since 1 January 2023:

• A copy of the agency’s current work from home policy, including the date it was last updated and any accompanying documentation outlining the rationale for the most recent changes.
• Copies of any previous versions of the work from home policy within the specified timeframe, including the dates each version was in effect (to and from) and any documentation explaining the reasons for changes made.
• Copies of all documents (including but not limited to briefings, memos, internal advice, and reports) provided to or from the Chief Executive or Executive Leadership Team relating to proposed or actual changes to the work from home policy.

I have just discovered this new Agency and was trying to determine exactly what it has done and how much it costs to operate.

Could therefore please detail exactly what this new Agency has done since its inception and what it has cost to date to operate this Agency including collective salary costs and the number of staff employed.

Also include any costs of travel, etc. to meetings and the purpose of each meeting.

Date

Request

Response

23/05/2024

Parental leave policy and any relevant documents that outline support extended to employees during parental leave and returning to work

parental leave policy [PDF, 370 KB]

23/05/2024

Total spend on contractors and consultants from 1 January 2004 – present, broken down by month (including April 2024 if possible). 

contractor and consultant spend [PDF, 259 KB]

09/05/2024

1. Commitments to transparency and partnership set out in the Algorithm Charter for Aotearoa|New Zealand.

2. how decisions made by the organisation are informed by algorithms;

3. how your organisation is delivering clear public benefits through Treaty of Waitangi commitments by embedding a te ao Maaori perspective in the organisation's development and use of algorithms consistent with the Treaty of Waitangi;

4. how your organisation has, or intends to, identify and consult with people, communities and groups who have an interest in algorithms, including Maaori;

5. how your organisation makes sure data is fit for purpose by identifying and managing bias;

6. how privacy, ethics, and human rights are safeguarded by regular peer reviews of algorithms to assess for unintended consequences, and how the organisation acts on this information; and 

7. setting out the nominated point of contact for public inquiries about algorithms - together with any internal policies, principles, rules, or guidelines that relate to the above matters.

Algorithm Charter and data stewardship [PDF, 5.2 MB]

19/04/2024

Copies of all proposal documents prepared to give effect to the Government’s directive to reduce expenditure in the public service, including but not limited to reduction of staff numbers and resulting redundancies.

If no such specific proposal document exists, please provide copies of all documents concerning the reduction of staff and redundancies from 27 November 2023 to present

proposal documents [PDF, 191 KB]

27/03/2024

Any secondary briefing provided by your agency to your agency’s ministers/s since 27 November 2023.

secondary briefings to Minister [PDF, 191 KB]

27/03/2024

• Any briefings provided to a Minister or Ministers to support conversations the Minister(s) has had with representatives of lobbying groups? 
  • if briefings have been provided, please also provide any related correspondence between or within agencies/departments/ministries and/or with the Minister or their staff. 
• A copy of any correspondence the Minister's Office forwarded to the Department from  representatives of lobbying groups.

Lobbying groups [PDF, 230 KB]

23/02/2024

Any correspondence received by you between 1 December 2023 and today from your agency’s responsible minister, the Minister of Finance, Treasury, or any other Minister or Agency regarding the fiscal sustainability programme, including any savings required by your agency.

Any letters of expectation or guidance from Te Kawa Mataaho received by you between 
1 December 2023 and today regarding change management or employment relations.

Ministerial correspondence [PDF, 1.2 MB]

21/02/2024

All advice, briefings, memos or any other documents provided by your agency staff or representatives regarding the roles and responsibilities of ministers, their portfolio, policies, and upcoming work, since 20 November 2023.

All advice, briefings, draft briefings to incoming ministers, memos or any other documents provided by your agency staff or representatives briefing the incoming minister, since 20 November 2023.

copies of initial briefings [PDF, 191 KB]

21/02/2024

• Copies of all internal correspondence sent or received by any Social Wellbeing Agency staff regarding a request of savings from the Minister of Finance for the 2024/25 financial year, since 20 November 2023.
• Copies of all external correspondence sent or received between Social Wellbeing Agency staff  and the Minister of Finance or her office requesting savings for the 2024/25 financial year, since 20 November 2023.
• Copies of all correspondence sent or received by any Social Wellbeing Agency staff regarding a request of savings from the Minister of Finance for the 2024/25 
  financial year, since 20 November 2023.
• Copies of all advice, briefings, memos or any other documents provided Social Wellbeing Agency staff regarding a request of savings from the Minister of Finance for the 2024/25 financial year, since 20 November 2023.
• Any further reports the Minister or her Office have received from Social Wellbeing Agency staff  regarding a request of savings from the Minister of Finance for the 2024/25 
  financial year, since 20 November 2023.

budget 2024 savings information [PDF, 282 KB]

19/02/2024

Information related to staff employed in ICT and digital roles.

ICT roles [PDF, 240 KB]

31/01/2024

Request for documents and information related to the Social Wellbeing Agency's role during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID 19 Lessons Learned [PDF, 18 MB]

16/01/2024

All costs associated with the creation your agency’s brand/logo. Including, but not limited to consultation, design, advertising, introducing the brand change, etc since 2017.

A timeline of all branding changes, and the corresponding total cost of each change.

Costs for Agency branding [PDF, 265 KB]

20/12/2023

• A list of all words, terms, and phrases that the Minister or any member of their Office has directed officials to not use in briefings, letters, emails, memos, aides-memoires or any other documents, or in meetings.
• A list of all directions to officials regarding the length, style or make up of all briefings, letters, emails, memos, aides-memoires or any other documents.
• A copy of any style guide used internally in the Minister’s Office or given to officials by the Minister’s Office.
• What directions, if any, has the Minister or their Office given to officials regarding the use of the word “equity”?
• What directions, if any, has the Minister or their Office given to officials regarding the use of the word “fairness”?
• What directions, if any, has the Minister or their Office given to officials regarding the use of the word “wellbeing”?
• What directions, if any, has the Minister or their Office given to officials regarding the use of Te Reo?
• What directions, if any, has the Minister or their Office given to officials regarding the use of pronouns? 

Ministerial direction on style and language [PDF, 198 KB]

15/12/2023

1. What was the department's Taxi expenditure for the 2022/23 financial year?
2. What was the department’s expenditure on ridesharing apps (such as Uber, Ola, Zoomy, YourRide etc) for the 2022/23 financial year?

If the agency does not separate out taxi expenditure from other ride sharing expenditure, please indicate whether ridesharing or taxi use is the default/most common when such a service is needed and provide and a rough estimate of the proportion of trips that are taken via ridesharing vs taxi

1. What was the department's expenditure on public transport (busses, trains, ferries, etc) for the 2022/23 financial year?
2. What was the department’s other road travel expenditure (running costs of vehicles owned by your agencies, hire cars etc but excluding flights) for the 2022/23 financial year?
3. Does the department have internal policies banning their staff or advising them against using ride-sharing apps for work travel? If so, what are these policies?
4. Does the department have any concerns about their staff using ride-sharing apps for work travel?
5. If the department does not currently use ridesharing, please indicate why not? Similarly, if the department does not use ridesharing as the default over taxis, please indicate why not.
6. Has the department purchased any vehicles over the 2022/2023 financial year? If so, how many were electric, diesel and petrol and what was the cost of these purchases broken down by vehicle type (electric, diesel, petrol)?
7. What is the running cost of all the department’s vehicles?
8. Please provide an estimate on the number of kilometers traveled by staff via land transport in the 2022/23 financial year.

transport costs [PDF, 443 KB]

04/10/2023

Consultation and Decision Documents that were generated and circulated between 1st July 2016 and 30th June 2021 as part of any restructure, reorganisation, or (dis)establishment of a team, business unit or directorate within the Social Wellbeing Agency.

consultation and decision documents for restructure [PDF, 17 MB]

21/09/2023

• Policies, guidelines, and/or general information provided to Toi Hau Tāngata employees regarding working from home or other flexible/remote/hybrid working arrangements that were in effect before 21 March 2020.
• Policies, guidelines, and/or general information provided to Toi Hau Tāngata employees regarding working from home or other flexible/remote/hybrid working arrangements that have been put in place or changed on or after 21 March 2020.
• Policies, guidelines, and/or general information regarding reasonable accommodations for 
  disabled employees at Toi Hau Tāngata that were in effect before 21 March 2020.
• Policies, guidelines, and/or general information regarding reasonable accommodations for 
  disabled employees at Toi Hau Tāngata that have been put in place or changed on or after 21 
  March 2020.

WFH policies [PDF, 1.5 MB]

21/08/2023

A list of all events the agency has held or had some responsibility for hosting that cost in excess of $10,000 over the past year? Can the total cost for each of these events please be provided, along with a breakdown of what contributed to the costs? It would be helpful to also know the business purpose or justification for each event as well

events costing over $10,000 [PDF, 183 KB]

07/06/2023

I would like an extract of the annual amount spent with all suppliers for the 2021/2022 financial year. I would like this data in an open format, csv or json formats would be suitable.I would like the following details provided:

• Supplier Name 
• Suppliers NZBN number (if available) 
• Total Amount Spent

Please provide the GST Exclusive amount spent.

I believe this information would be readily available via an extract from your Accounts Payable  system.

I have already received similar data from a number of Government organisations, which implies this information can be treated as open data.

supplier spending for 2021/22 [PDF, 243 KB]

17/02/2023

All information regarding the total amount spent on consultants—per consultancy firm—for each of the last six years. Please note that the annual reviews do not provide the total amount spent on consultants, per consultancy firm.

consultant spend [PDF, 247 KB]

13/02/2023

advice, recommendations, assessments, warnings, risk assessments, updates, reports and analyses you have produced or received by the Social Wellbeing Agency regarding youth crime, the drivers/causes of youth crime and potential policies/law changes/regulations/initiatives/programmes might respond to youth crime since 1 June 2022 that are not in the public domain.

Youth crime [PDF, 247 KB]