Official Information Act request – national Police practice concerning local-authority civil debt and rates matters

NATIONAL LOCAL-AUTHORITY DEBT ENFORCEMENT POLICY AND DATA

Date: 9 August 2026
From: TRACY LYNCH
To: New Zealand Police
Subject: Official Information Act request – national Police practice concerning local-authority civil debt and rates matters

Under the Official Information Act 1982, please provide the following national-level information concerning Police involvement in local-authority civil debt, rates recovery, and related enforcement matters:
1. Any current national Police policy, operational instruction, legal guidance, practice note, training material, or internal advice governing Police attendance or assistance in local-authority civil debt or unpaid-rates matters.
2. Any document identifying the legal basis on which Police may be asked by a territorial authority, regional council, council-controlled organisation, debt collector, lawyer, bailiff, contractor, or other agent to attend or assist in connection with collection or enforcement of a civil debt.
3. For each financial year from 2021/22 to 2025/26, the number of Police events nationally that were coded, tagged, described, or otherwise identifiable as involving local-authority unpaid rates, civil debt collection, debt enforcement, or Council-requested assistance in relation to debt.
4. If Police does not maintain statistics capable of answering item 3, please state that the information is not held in that form and identify any existing event code, category, search field, dataset, or reporting mechanism that is used for such events, if one exists.
5. Any national guidance distinguishing Police’s role in keeping the peace, public safety, criminal-law enforcement, and execution of court process from the civil collection or recovery of a debt.
6. Any current memorandum of understanding, national agreement, or standard protocol between New Zealand Police and Local Government New Zealand, any local-authority sector body, or any individual local authority dealing with Police attendance in civil debt or rates enforcement.
7. Any internal review, audit, complaint analysis, legal opinion, or policy review since 1 July 2021 concerning whether Police involvement in a local-authority civil debt matter was within Police functions or powers.
For statistical information, an existing extract, spreadsheet, report, or machine-readable dataset is preferred. I do not ask Police to create a new dataset if the information is not already held in that form.
If any information is withheld, please identify the specific statutory withholding ground relied upon for each category of information withheld.
If any requested information is not held by New Zealand Police but is believed to be held by another agency, please transfer that part of the request in accordance with the Official Information Act 1982 and advise me of the transfer.
Electronic copies are preferred. Where a record already exists electronically, please provide the existing record rather than creating a new summary.
Yours faithfully,
TRACY LYNCH
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