The outgoing Ombudsman Peter Boshier has singled out Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora as a “particular concern” when it comes to releasing public information under the Official Information Act.
Boshier warned that Health NZ’s practice of delaying
Ombudsman singles out Health NZ’s attitude to official information
Subscribe to listen
Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber? Sign in here
Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier. Photo / RNZ
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Boshier warned that stiffer penalties may be needed for government agencies that persistently delay the release of official information.
The report was accompanied by several deep dives into particular agencies’ compliance.
Boshier singled out Health NZ as “not always following the letter and spirit of the law”.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
“For a relatively new agency, Health NZ is generating an increasing number of complaints, mostly about the time it takes to make a decision, or its refusal to release parts or all of the requested information.
“Health NZ’s record management, especially its inability to retrieve regional records, is an underlying factor,” he said.
He also raised a concern with several agencies’ record-keeping, warning that the practice of agencies keeping poor records to avoid those records being released under the OIA was “wrong”.
“Good record keeping is a legal requirement under the Public Records Act 2005. Official information must be not only retained but be able to be retrieved.
“I have sometimes heard that public officials are pressured to avoid creating records for ‘fear of them being OIA-ed’. This is wrong. I believe this is an area of the law that needs strengthening,” he said.
Boshier said he had dealt with 14,000 OIA requests and conducted 37 proactive investigations.
He said the main issues with the OIA was not the law, but the “culture”.
“Bad behaviour undermines the OIA. The Act’s not the problem – it’s the attitude that needs to change,” he said.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
“For example, I see far too many agencies taking a defensive approach to OIA requests. This attitude can lead to misbehaviour. I believe where problem behaviour exists, even after all the levers provided in the legislation have been applied to their fullest extent, additional incentives and sanctions against offending agencies may be needed.”
Boshier had some criticism for people who use the OIA. He was there was a “small number of requesters” who were using the act “irresponsibly”.
He said these people were “submitting requests that are vexatious, frivolous, or too large”.
“This places a huge burden on responders and frustrates the entire OIA process. Requesters should always be careful that when they make requests, they don’t undermine the very system that allows them to access information.”
Health NZ criticisms
Boshier’s deep dive into Health NZ found that some of the extensions to the deadlines of OIA requests might have been “contrary to law in some instances”.
He argued “there were no lawful grounds for an extension and/or because a decision has not been made as soon as reasonably practicable”.
He said in some cases, OIAs were extended in order to accommodate the agency’s “notification process with its minister, which sometimes took up to eight days”.
The deep dive also found that there were challenges in the recently merged agency’s handling of OIA requests. These are mostly dealt with centrally, however, in some cases, there is difficulty getting data from different parts of the enormous organisation to the centre to be collated and handed over to the requestor.
“Staff advised me that they find ‘multi-area requests’ to be challenging in terms of OIA timeliness compliance.
“These are requests for information relating to multiple regions where the information is not centrally held.
“I was advised that the challenges in processing requests of this type lay in communicating with all relevant areas to source the information, and in standardising the information collected in order to provide a single, cohesive response to the requester,” Boshier said in the report.
He said the agency’s process of handling multi-area requests “may not align with its current capability” to meet OIA rules around timelines.
Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.
