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New Zealand is a member of the Open Government Partnership, which is an international agreement by governments to create greater transparency, increase civic participation and use new technologies to make their governments more open, effective, and accountable. The Public Service Commission leads this programme for New Zealand: Open Government Partnership - Public Service Commission Te Kawa Mataaho(external link)
In March 2019, as part of the Open Government Partnership’s Third National Action Plan, the Ministry engaged in public consultation on whether the OIA should be reviewed. Approximately 300 submitters provided feedback. See summary here. [PDF, 1.5 MB]
In 2023-2024, as part of the Open Government Partnership’s Fourth National Action Plan, the Ministry of Justice led work to strengthen the scrutiny of proposed legislation that would override the disclosure requirements of the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA).
Research on cost drivers in the official information system
The Ministry is undertaking work as part of its stewardship function to understand what drives cost and volumes in the official information system. Information about how the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) is working currently will help us to safeguard the official information system into the future.
In late 2025, the Ministry of Justice commissioned Tregaskis Brown Ltd (TBL) to model cost estimates of the official information system based on data provided to the Public Service Commission. Their report, which was provided in November 2025, indicated that responding to OIA requests cost the public service over $183m in the 2024/25 financial year, within a possible range of $175m - $250m depending on the estimated complexity of requests.
The report also identified a 394% increase in OIA requests since 2016, which can be attributed to several factors including changes to reporting requirements and classification of requests.
This illustrates the increasing burden on agencies and the evolving use of the OIA.
These issues are not unique to New Zealand. They are also being faced by overseas official information systems, including in Australia and the United Kingdom.
The report gave a sense of the overall costs of processing OIA requests, but what is driving this cost is not well understood.
In 2026, the Ministry contracted TBL to carry out further research. This research seeks to provide insights into the current state of the official information system, the drivers of the cost of the OIA, and agencies’ experience with responding to OIA requests.
TBL surveyed 26 agencies across the public service, gaining new insights into the official information system and agency response processes. 10 follow-up interviews were undertaken.
The research found that four factors are driving cost in the official information system –
Demand - the volume and complexity of requests is increasing while publicly available information is hard to locate leading to “unnecessary” requests;
Response sophistication - agencies have varying approaches to scoping, triaging and assessing risk when responding to requests; and
Capability and Capacity - agencies have low information management maturity, and retain mostly manual or semi-manual response management processes.
Insights from this research will help inform initial policy development in four areas of possible future reform of the OIA. Subject to other priorities, public consultation may occur in the next parliamentary term. These focus areas are:
Area 1 – whether the scope and coverage is fit for purpose;
Area 2 – improvements to practice and process;
Area 3 – possible clarifications of any withholding and refusal grounds;
Area 4 – any changes to system roles and leadership.
Other
Human Rights Act 1993: See Constitutional - Human Rights Domestic