7.4 Council-held information
Official information
Official information includes material held in any format, such as:
- written documents, reports, memoranda, letters, notes and emails (this includes draft documents and handwritten notes)
- non-written documentary information, such as material stored on or generated by computers, including databases, video or tape recordings
- information known to the council but not yet recorded, in writing or otherwise (including knowledge of a particular matter held by an officer, employee or member of the council in their official capacity)
- documents and manuals setting out decision-making policies, principles, rules or guidelines.
Applying the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA)
The council must hold the information for the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA) to apply. It does not matter where it originated or where it is currently located, as long as it is held by the council. For example, a third party may have created the information and sent it to the council or it may be held in an employee’s memory.
The council is not obliged to form an opinion or create new information in order to answer a request, however it can create new information if it chooses to.
Information held by elected members, officers and employees in their official, rather than personal, capacities is deemed to be held by the council [1]. However, information held in a personal capacity can become official information if it is used subsequently for official purposes. Auckland Council may contract private individuals, companies or other organisations to carry out work on its behalf. Similarly, information held by these individuals is also deemed to be held by the council if it is held in an official capacity [2].
Purpose of the LGOIMA
The Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA) has three key purposes. They are to:
- progressively increase the availability of official information held by local authorities and promote the open and public transaction of business at meetings. This is to enable more effective public participation in decision-making and promote the accountability of elected members and officials
- provide people with proper access to official information relating to them
- protect official information and the deliberations of in a way that is consistent with the public interest and the protection of personal privacy [3].
Information requests
Any individual or group [4] may make a request for official information. This can be made to anyone in the council and does not need to refer to the LGOIMA. The LGOIMA contains rules for handling requests and provides a right to complain to the Ombudsman in certain situations.
Principle of availability
Official information should be made available unless one or more of the grounds for withholding (which are listed in LGOIMA) applies [5]. This is the ‘principle of availability’ and should always be kept in mind when considering how best to respond to a request.
Meetings
The LGOIMA also contains provisions dedicated to the conduct of council meetings. With some exceptions, part 7 requires that:
- meetings are publicly notified
- agendas, reports and minutes are publicly available
- meetings are open to the public unless there is good reason for excluding them
- members of the public can ask the Ombudsman to investigate if dissatisfied with the council’s conduct of meetings.
Responding to information requests
If you need a lot of information, or if you cannot find the information on this website or from our staff, there are two types of information requests we can help you with:
- official information requests under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.
- information privacy request under the Privacy Act 1993.
You can Make an official information request for any information that we hold, such as:
- policies and procedures
- reasons for a decision or our decision-making process
- drawings or images
- records.
You can make a privacy request for access to, or correction of, information that we hold about you.
Withholding information
We may withhold or refuse to give information for reasons specified in sections 6, 7 and 17 of theLocal Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.
If we withhold or refuse to give information, we will explain the reason why. For information about withholding personal information, see sections 27 to 29 of the Privacy Act 1993.
Communicating the decision
We will provide you with a decision about your request within 20 working days. We will let you know as soon as possible if:
- we cannot meet the deadline
- we need more information
- the information is held by another government organisation and we need to transfer your request.
You can ask us to treat your request as urgent. If you do, you need to provide a reason. One of our team will advise you on what is possible.
Publishing information
We regularly publish LGOIMA responses that are of interest to the general public. When we publish these responses, we withhold the names of individual requestors to protect their privacy.
Visit Performance and transparency to check published LGOIMA responses.
Footnotes
[1] Section 2(3) LGOIMA
[2] Section 2(6) LGOIMA
[3] Sections 6, 7, 8 and 17 LGOIMA
[4] Section 10(1) LGOIMA
[5] Sections 5 LGOIMA