Adventures in Comms · Issue 01, 03Aotearoa New Zealand
The Waiting Room
Official information requests have a deadline of 20 working days,
unless the agency extends it. Ten years of agencies' own statistics show what happens
in practice. The data covers 918,544 requests from 2015 to
December 2024.
Typical wait · six months to December 2024
17 working days
20-day limit
05101520 days
Requests · six months to Dec 2024
85,713
Answered late
8,136
Answered on time
90.5%
Refused in full
6%
Finding 01
Late replies peaked in late 2023
More than one request in five missed the deadline in the six months to
December 2023. The rate recovered to 90.5% a year later, although complaints referred
to agencies by the Ombudsman reached a record 398 in that period. The shaded section
marks periods where fewer than 90% were on time. Hover or drag across the line for the figures.
Finding 02
Police accounts for most late replies, but it is not a slow agency
Finding 03
Policy ministries use nearly all of the 20 working days
Among policy ministries, the median reply arrives on day 18, 19 or
20. Each dot is an agency handling at least 100 requests, placed at its median wait.
An answer can still count as on time after the agency extends its deadline: the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs and Trade did that for 41% of requests, and Oranga Tamariki
for 36%.
Finding 04
Agencies, ranked
Agencies handling 20 or more requests in the six months to December 2024.
Tap any row
for its full record and history. Agencies marked low n handled
fewer than 100 requests, so one late reply can move the percentage sharply.
#AgencyRequestsOn timeMedianRefused
Source. Official OIA statistics published by
Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service
Commission, collected six-monthly since 2015. The dataset used here runs to December
2024. Cleaning. Rows typed “Agency Type Totals” are sector aggregates and are removed; left in
they double every national figure. The first two collections were annual and appear duplicated
across two half-year rows, so those duplicates are dropped. Macrons are missing from the
published file, replaced by question marks at source; they are restored here from an explicit
list rather than guessed. Caveats. Volumes roughly triple in 2019 because New Zealand Police joined the collection
with 42,351 requests in one period. That jump reflects a change in scope, which is why the
trend chart shows percentages rather than counts. Median response times were
not collected before 2022. “Refused in full” follows the collection's refusal column and
excludes partial refusals. Agencies self-report, and “on time” counts requests where the agency
extended its own deadline as having been met.