A $2.8 million poll

The Taxpayers’ Union released:

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through Official Information Act request that the Ministry of Social Development is spending $2.8 million on a youth wellbeing survey that included sending brownie boxes worth $7,544 to schools to encourage participation.

The Ministry confirmed that research firm Ipsos, which is contracted to deliver the Youth Health and Wellbeing Survey, sent brownie boxes to 170 schools and 14 kura at $41 each including postage – bringing the total cost of the survey to more than $350 per response.

The survey is an excellent one, which provides a lot of great data. However it should not cost $2.8 million to get 8,000 responses – in my opinion.