Since the Official Information Act 1982 came into force in 1983, the office of the ombudsman has received and reviewed complaints about refusals of government agencies to provide information under the act. This graph shows the number of requests for reviews received carried out each year since 2000. The vast majority of these complaints relate to either an outright refusal of a government agency to provide the information or an unnecessarily long delay in responding (known as a ‘delay deemed refusal'). Other types of complaints received include those relating to deletions in the information provided, charges for the information and transfers of inquiries to different agencies.

The sharp spike in 2013 was created by a single complainant objecting to delays by various school Boards of Trustees in responding to their request for information. This individual generated nearly half of the 2,374 complaints received by the ombudsman in that financial year.