Treasury able to refuse request for 2024 Budget information ahead of proactive release
A final opinion published today by the Office of the Ombudsman found Treasury was entitled to refuse an official information request for 2024 Budget information because it was soon to become publicly available.
Treasury received the request for information about the probable inflationary effects of personal tax cuts on 10 May 2024, ahead of the Budget being announced on 30 May 2024.
In June, Treasury refused the request on the basis the information would soon be publicly available as part of its planned proactive release of Budget information.
In July, Treasury advised the requester the information would be released in late August 2024.
The requester then complained to the then Chief Ombudsman, Peter Boshier.
Treasury then released the information as part of proactive release of 416 budget documents in September.
The Ombudsman’s investigation looked at whether the Treasury’s decision met the criteria of section 18(d) of the Official Information Act, which provides that a request may be refused if ‘the information is or will soon be publicly available.’
Treasury was working on a planned release by a specific deadline at the time of the request, but unforeseen delays resulted in an additional two to three weeks before the information was published online.
Mr Boshier found that while the proactive release took over 3 months and would not normally be seen as ‘soon’, it was reasonable to consider it ‘soon’ in this case due to the volume of material, and the complexity of the process which involved a number of agencies and the approval of several Ministers.
However, he found that while the timing in this case was acceptable, it did not automatically permit Treasury to rely on the same proactive release timeframe to refuse information requests in the future.
Mr Boshier found Treasury was entitled to refuse the request under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act, in March 2025.