Oranga Tamariki acknowledged it needed to do more to improve its OIA response time. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Oranga Tamariki is the slowest government agency to respond to official information requests, new data shows.
In recently released data, the Public Service commissioner said 99 agencies completed 26,505 OIA requests between January and June this year.
Department of Corrections and Toka Tū Ake EQC recieved the most requests during this time period, with over 5000 each.
Oranga Tamariki-Ministry for Children, which only received 153 requests, took the longest time to respond with 35.5 days on average.
The data showed 73.9 percent of requests to Oranga Tamariki were completed within the legislated timeframe, well behind the average of 98.2 percent across all agencies.
Oranga Tamariki's Nicolette Dickson said the ministry took its obligations under the Official Information Act seriously and the organisation must do better.
It was not an acceptable position for Oranga Tamariki to be in, but reflected a period where Oranga Tamariki experienced high workloads and vacancies within the team responsible for managing offical information requests, she said.
"We have and will continue to take action to address this and to ensure we are responsive to all requests for information. For example, additional staff members were added to the team for the time period of March to August to assist.
"Work is also underway to improve internal processes and the team is now fully staffed. We have put in place processes to review our OIA statistics every month to ensure legislative obligations under the OIA are met."
Commissioner Peter Hughes said overall, public agencies were improving in its performance on requests for official information.
Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes. Photo: Supplied / Royal Commission
Of those that received more than 100 requests between January and June, Education Review Office, Government Communications Security Bureau, Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission, Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand, Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, and the Commerce Commission all responded to 100 percent of requests within legislated timeframes.
New Zealanders can access information with official requests to government ministries, the public service, and crown entities.
Hughes said despite the average response time increasing, the number of requests being responded to within the required time has increased slightly.
This is the third time the Public Service Commission has published data on the average time for agencies to respond to requests, and the use of extensions, transfers, and refusals.