Information regarding South and North Dunedin Kiwibanks (now closed)

Rich Seager (Account suspended) made this Official Information request to New Zealand Post Limited

The request was refused by New Zealand Post Limited.

From: Rich Seager (Account suspended)

Dear New Zealand Post Limited,

please provide information regarding total gross turnover, cost of sales, expenses and net profit/loss as regards the South Dunedin Kiwibank at 180 King Edward St in South Dunedin for the years ended March 31 2018 and March 31 2014. I would prefer this information in Profit and Loss form with any additional information that you are able to provide.

Please provide the same information for the Kiwibank that was present at 366 Great King St in Dunedin North.

As both Kiwibanks are now closed I do not see this request triggering the following;

"to protect trade secrets, or the commercial position of the supplier of or the subject of the information"

and therefore look forward to receiving this information.

If New Zealand Post is not the correct entity to provide these responses please pass the request along to the appropriate agency/organisation.

Yours faithfully,
Rich Seager

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From: Oia Officer
New Zealand Post Limited

Dear Mr Seager
 
Further to your requests for information dated 25 April 2019 relating to
the Kiwibank and Post Office at:

* 180 King Edward St in South Dunedin
* 366 Great King St in Dunedin North

 
Please note that for these two addresses that Kiwibank and New Zealand
Post operated as shared branches for the periods in your request. Also,
please note that our accounting year runs to 30 June, rather than to 31
March as per your request. That aside, we have declined your request for
information under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) on the
grounds set out below.
 
The request for the following information is declined under section 18(g)
of the Act as it is not held by New Zealand Post and, in some cases, would
need to be created:

* Total gross turnover for Kiwibank (because we do not have details for
certain Kiwibank products, such as card sales and home loan sales does
not exist at a branch level)
* cost of sales information does not exist at a branch level
* total expenses at branch level (because certain expense details do not
exist at a branch level, e.g. infrastructure and back office allocated
costs)
* net profit/loss at a branch level

 
To the extent that we hold some of the information requested, the requests
are declined on the basis of sections 9(2)(b)(ii) and 9(2)(i) of the Act. 
Such information would include revenue for some products (excluding those
noted above), payroll and property cost information. However, releasing
this information would likely disadvantage or prejudice the commercial
positions of New Zealand Post and Kiwibank in regards to their competitors
and agency partners, which would be unreasonable.
 
The fact these branches have closed does not prevent this information
being commercially sensitive.
 
We have considered whether other public interest considerations would
favour the disclosure of the information, but have concluded that such
considerations do not outweigh the specified interests. 
 
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of
this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
[1]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
 
I would appreciate it if you could acknowledge receipt of this email.
 
Regards
OIA Officer
 

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From: Rich Seager (Account suspended)

Dear Oia Officer,

I have received your response. It is rather disappointing.

I am more than happy to amend my requests to the 30th June of both the relevant years. Or if you don't have 2018 June accounts available I am happy if you provide information for 2017 instead.

Both branches impress me as being fairly popular ones when they were open. So if you prefer I can amend the request further (as well as shifting financial year end to June 30th) so that you can give turnovers of these two branches as a % of the two remaining branches in Dunedin, the one at Green Island and the other one at the Gardens Shopping Centre at North East Valley (expressed as a % of each rather than both together).

Please respond on whether such changes (and which ones) will elicit a change in your response.

Actually I am surprised of your statement of the information that you say you do not collect at branch level. I would have thought that would make it even more difficult to decide on the profitability of a branch.

Thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Rich Seager

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From: Oia Officer
New Zealand Post Limited

Dear Mr Seager
 
I acknowledge receipt of your official information request dated 21 May
2019.
 
We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible and in
any event no later than  19 June 2019, being 20 working days after the day
your request was received. If we are unable to respond to your request by
then, we will notify you of an extension of that timeframe. 
 
Please note that because your requests were declined for other reasons, we
did not come back to you with the option of amending your dates from 31
March to 30 June.
 
Regards
OIA Officer
 

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From: Oia Officer
New Zealand Post Limited

Dear Mr Seager
We refer to your request dated 21 May 2019, regarding amending your
original request of 25 April 2019, relating to the Kiwibank and Post
Office at:

* 180 King Edward St in South Dunedin
* 366 Great King St in Dunedin North

You have asked whether adjusting your request in the following ways would
make a difference to our decision:

 1. Adjusting the timeframes (to match our 30 June year end)
 2. Adjusting the accounting period from 2018 to 2017
 3. Expressing the turnover of the two above branches, as a percentage of
each of two different Dunedin branches (Green Island and The Gardens).

Adjusting the timeframes (per 1 and 2 above) is not the issue, your
request was declined for the other reasons noted in our response of 17 May
2019.  In terms of your third suggestion, please note that the Green
Island and The Gardens stores are agency stores operated by third parties
(not by New Zealand Post), and as such we do not hold full revenue or
profitability information on those stores; therefore we cannot make the
calculation suggested.
 
However, we do hold some information in relation to these two stores, such
as revenue New Zealand Post collects from the agency stores on the sale of
Post services (such as postal services and bill pay), although this is not
directly comparable to revenue generated at a New Zealand Post corporate
store.  We do not cost information relating to these two stores. 
To the extent that we could express the revenue of Edward St and King St
branches as a percentage of the Green Island and The Gardens stores (and
noting the issue of comparison above), we decline on the basis of sections
9(2)(b)(ii) and 9(2)(i) of the Official Information Act.  Releasing such
revenue information, even expressed as percentage, would likely
disadvantage or prejudice the commercial position of New Zealand Post in
relation to its agency partners – and potentially disadvantage or
prejudice the position of the agency partners in their own commercial
dealings (e.g. sale of their business).
We are not aware of any public interest considerations that would outweigh
the interests mentioned above.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of
this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
[1]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
I would appreciate it if you could acknowledge receipt of this email.
 
Regards
OIA Officer
 

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Rich Seager (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Very poor response. In a democracy it is important that we are provided with the information required for us to make decisions on whether the citizenry approves of decisions like this that remove assets from the State and give them to capitalists (whether small or large).

And we need to know for what consideration (i.e. price) these assets were removed from State ownership, as without that we cannot know if it is a fair price (i.e. one that is not discounted as many of these sales are).

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Things to do with this request

Anyone:
New Zealand Post Limited only: