Material newly surfaced Ombudsman guidance

Material newly surfaced Ombudsman guidance — important for how we frame Police and council OIA/LGOIMA requests

I found two Chief Ombudsman case notes issued on 21 August 2026 that are highly relevant to the current accountability work.

 

 They are not new decisions made overnight, but they are newly surfaced in this watch and materially affect how we should structure requests so agencies cannot easily label them “vexatious”.

 

In Ombudsman case 019638, involving New Zealand Police, Chief Ombudsman John Allen accepted that Police could refuse a group of OIA requests under s 18(h) Official Information Act 1982. 

The Ombudsman considered the requests collectively rather than in isolation, taking account of their volume, history, purpose, administrative burden and effect on staff. He stressed that the OIA is for obtaining information held by an agency, not for interrogating the agency or forcing it into an ongoing dispute. This is an Ombudsman opinion on its own facts, not binding precedent.

 

A parallel decision, Ombudsman case 024643, concerned a local authority and s 17(h) LGOIM.

 

 Nine requests containing 36 subparts had been made during ongoing litigation. The Ombudsman accepted the Council’s refusal where requests became repetitive, sought explanations or justifications rather than existing information, duplicated matters already dealt with through LGOIMA or civil disclosure, and were being used to continue the dispute rather than simply obtain records. 

Again, the Ombudsman expressly says the case note is not binding precedent.

 

This means our strongest formulation for the active Police, rates and council files is now record-specific rather than question-heavy. 

 

Instead of asking “Why did you do this?”, 

“Verify this”, or submitting a long series of argumentative sub questions, identify the existing record sought: warrant application; delegation; notebook entry;  NIA event history; prosecution review;  search audit;  rating resolution; rates assessment;  valuation calculation;  RID  ; penalty calculation;   officer/employee authorisation;  correspondence;  contractor instruction;  database audit log;   meeting minute;   or decision record.  Where court proceedings are already underway, litigation-specific material should generally be pursued through the applicable court disclosure process, while OIA/LGOIMA requests remain focused on discrete existing public records.

 

There is an important positive source for the rates cases as well. Archives New Zealand expressly identifies “Rating and valuations” as Class 13 of the protected local-authority records framework. 

 

It says that class covers the regulation, setting and collection of council income through valuation of rateable land, including records documenting rates rebates/remissions and the process for calculating and assessing district property values. 

 

Archives says these records provide evidence that councils are complying with the Local Government (Rating) Act requirement for transparent and consultative rates setting and collection.

 It also notes that outsourcing valuation work does not eliminate the council’s obligation to maintain specified valuation records.

 

That gives us a cleaner response where a council says “we have already answered”, “no further response”, or “no records exist”: request the identified record class itself, and, if it truly no longer exists, ask for the applicable retention/disposal authority and record showing its lawful disposal. 

 

The Archives material does not prove any particular council has unlawfully destroyed or failed to create records, but it is strong official support for asking precisely what rating and valuation records should be held.