Our ref Contact
473515 (Complaint ground: 473516) Joanne James
4 July 2018
Mr Louis Houlbrooke By email: louis@taxpayers.org.nz
Dear Mr Houlbrooke
Local Government Official information and Meetings Act investigation Christchurch City Council Cost of digital and touch walls at Christchurch Library I refer to your queries regarding the Christchurch City Council’s (the Council) release of the cost of the touch walls to be installed at the new Christchurch central library. As you will be aware, an Ombudsman’s function under the official information legislation is to investigate complaints about refusals of requests for such information and to recommend release where the refusal is unjustified. While a public duty to observe the recommendation made in this case arose 21 days after being made, (unless the Council had resolved not to do so before then), an Ombudsman has no enforcement powers and cannot compel release by a specific date. As the public duty has now arisen, the Taxpayers Union is now entitled to bring enforcement proceedings in the High Court. The Attorney-General also has the authority to do so. While it is over to the Taxpayers Union to decide whether to issue proceedings at this stage or to first make inquiries of the Council as to its intentions, I, for my part, am referring the Council’s failure to observe its public duty to the Solicitor-General, asking that the Attorney-General consider issuing enforcement proceedings against the Council. While there appear to be no further legal steps that I can take, I, as Chief Ombudsman, take a very dim view of non-compliance with a public duty and shall make my expectations on this clear to the Solicitor-General. My role as a watchdog for Parliament is to make sure official information law is not undermined by agencies ignoring their public duty when it arises. Yours sincerely
Peter Boshier Chief Ombudsman