Corrections’ Official Information Act statistics
Corrections is committed to the principles of transparency and openness as a vital aspect of being accountable to the people of New Zealand. The Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) is a key mechanism to promote these principles. Our positive record of meeting our OIA obligations highlights our commitment to these important principles. In 2023/24, we received and responded to 12,865 OIA requests into our National Office [2022/23: 10,043]. Of those sent, 98.7 percent were responded to within legislated timeframes.
In September 2022, the Office of the Ombudsman released a report into Corrections’ OIA compliance and practice.
The below table provides key statistics relating to OIAs managed by Corrections’ National Office. Corrections is continuing to investigate how to capture centralised statistics for OIAs managed by prisons and Community Corrections sites.
In addition to the figures below, similar data has been publicly released through other avenues, including Corrections’ Annual Reports and six-monthly statistics published by the Public Service Commission. There may be minor discrepancies between the figures presented via different sources. This is due to the data being extracted at different times and Corrections’ ongoing quality assurance process to ensure the data is as accurate as possible.
Official Information Act timeliness and release of requests
Financial Year | 2023/24 | 2022/23 | 2021/22 | 2020/21 | 2019/20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Official Information Act requests received and responded to | 12,865 | 10,043 | 8,856 | 7,491 | 6,392 |
| % of responses responded to within the statutory timeframe | 98.7% | 99.3% | 99.2% | 96.8% | 98.2% |
| % of responses where an extension was deemed necessary | 1.6% | 1.9% | 3.0% | 4.5% | 2.5% |
| % of OIA responses where the information was released in full | 91.9% | 91.8%* | 91% | 94.2% | 93.1% |
| % of information requests fully transferred in accordance with Section 14 of OIA | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| % of information requests partially released | 1.6% | 1.9% | 1.7% | 2.4% | 3% |
| % of OIA requests where the information requested was refused under section 6, 9 or 18 of the OIA | 6.3% | 6.4% | 4.6% | 3.1% | 2.7% |
| Average number of working days to respond to an OIA | 8.8 | 9.2 | 6 | 8.5 | 5.5 |
| Ombudsman OIA Complaint - Investigations notified to Corrections | 39 | 26 | 64 | 27 | 31 |
| Ombudsman OIA Complaint – Final Opinions | 27 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 9 |
*Restated to reflect a clearer data collection methodology.
View complete data set of OIA timeless and release of requests XLSX, 12.2 KB from financial year 2016/17 to current year.