Councillor conflict of interest statements

Douglas Black made this Official Information request to Southland Regional Council

The request was partially successful.

From: Douglas Black

Dear Southland Regional Council,

Could you please supply me with a copy of the full personal statements made by all current councillors at the recent elections, including any identified conflicts of interest.

Yours faithfully,

Douglas Black

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From: Bronwyn Auckram
Southland Regional Council

Hi Mr Black

 

Official information Request

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your official information request
dated 20/11/2019.

We received your request on 20/11/2019. We will endeavour to respond to
your request as soon as possible and in any event no later than
18/12/2019, 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.

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact us. If any additional
factors come to light which are relevant to your request, please do not
hesitate to contact us so that these can be taken into account.

Yours sincerely

 

Bronwyn Auckram     

 

 

Bronwyn Auckram
Records Officer - Records Management 
Environment Southland  Te Taiao Tonga

P 03 211 5115 | DDI 03 211 5708 | M  
Cnr Price St & North Rd, Private Bag 90116, Invercargill 9840
[1][email address] |
[2]www.es.govt.nz | [3]facebook.com/environmentsouthland

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the intended recipient only. If you are not the intended recipient please
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From: Jan Brown
Southland Regional Council


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Hello Mr Black

I am responding to your Official Information Act request relating to Councillor personal statements and conflict of interest declarations.

Attached please find copies of each of the current Councillors full personal statements made at the recent elections.
There are only 9 of those statements, although we have 12 Councillors - that is because three of the Councillors (McCallum, McPhail and Stevens) were returned unopposed, and so did not need to go through the election process.

Also attached are copies of the current Council's Members' Interests Declaration forms.
You will appreciate that I have been gathering this information from the past and existing Councillors, for the forthcoming triennium. The information provided here is the most up-to-date information I have relating to each of the Councillors as it has been supplied to me to date.

I advise you that you have the right to complain to the Ombudsman if you believe that information has been refused.

Yours sincerely

Jan Brown
Executive Assistant

Jan Brown

Environment Southland Te Taiao Tonga

P 03 211 5115
Cnr Price St & North Rd, Private Bag 90116, Invercargill 9840

This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate,distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version.

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From: Douglas Black

Dear Jan Brown,

Thank you for your reply which was helpful but incomplete, as follows:
1) there is no conflict of interest statement for Nicol Horrell, and
2) there are no personal statements from the three unopposed councillors,as you noted. However, these need to be supplied so that all citizens affected by their decisions can see what they stand for and if appropriate seek to hold them to account. Further, such statements will be available for when they last made them in a contested election, and these should be updated as their views and circumstances may have changed since then. I respectfully request that updated personal statements be supplied from these three councillors as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Douglas Black

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From: Jan Brown
Southland Regional Council


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Hello Mr Black

My apologies.
You are quite correct, I omitted Nicol Horrell's declaration, and that was purely an oversight on my part, as it was definitely held in my office at the time you requested the information.
Attached is his Declaration.

I am currently looking into the points you make in paragraph (2), and will come back to you shortly with a response.

Regards
Jan

Jan Brown

Environment Southland Te Taiao Tonga

P 03 211 5115
Cnr Price St & North Rd, Private Bag 90116, Invercargill 9840
Environment Southland's office will be closed over the Christmas period from 1pm on Tuesday 24 December until 8am on Monday 6 January.

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From: Douglas Black

Dear Jan Brown

Thanks for your very speedy reply - look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Douglas Black

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From: Jan Brown
Southland Regional Council

Hello Douglas

With regard to paragraph 2 of your email, I advise that Environment Southland does not hold the information you are seeking.
Our elections services are provided by a contractor, who holds the information.
I have put a request in to that person to provide what you have asked for, and will advise when I have heard back from them.

I need to let you know that this is my last day in the office for this year, and I will not be back until 13 January 2020.
If I don't hear back from our contractor before I leave today, any response he does send is likely to be stuck in my emails.
I will endeavour to keep in touch with my emails whilst I am away, but I will be out of the country.
If this is going to be a problem for you (my return being 14 January and the potential delay of a response until that time), please let me know, and I will endeavour to put some other option into place.

Thanks.
Jan

This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate,distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version.

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From: Douglas Black

Dear Jan Brown,

Thank you again for your prompt reply. I am very happy to wait till your return from holiday to receive the information still outstanding.

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year!

Yours sincerely,

Douglas Black

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From: Jan Brown
Southland Regional Council

I currently out of the office returning on Monday, 13 January 2020. 
Please contact the Organisation Support team on 03 211 5115 if your need
is urgent assistance, otherwise I will respond to your email upon my
return to work.  Merry Christmas.

Jan Brown
Executive Assistant 
Environment Southland  Te Taiao Tonga

P 03 211 5115 | DDI 03 211 5288 | M 021 177 3808 
Cnr Price St & North Rd, Private Bag 90116, Invercargill 9840
[1][email address] |
[2]www.es.govt.nz | [3]facebook.com/environmentsouthland
Environment Southland's office will be closed over the Christmas period
from 5pm on Tuesday 24 December until 8am on Monday 6 January.

The information contained in this email message is for the attention of
the intended recipient only. If you are not the intended recipient please
advise the sender immediately and delete the email and attachments. Any
use, dissemination, reproduction or distribution of this email and any
attachments by anyone other than the intended recipient is improper use of
the information.

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From: Jan Brown
Southland Regional Council


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Attachment SD011.20161008.RC.721.20160825111727.JEREMY.MCPHAIL.profile html.PROD.pdf
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Hello Mr Black

Over the Christmas break I have received the following response from our Electoral provider, with two of the remaining candidates statements that you sought.

Cr McCallum came on to Council during the 2013 election process. That process was not managed by this Council, nor was it managed by Election Services (Dale Ofsoske), but was run on our behalf by the Southland District Council.

If you are still wanting to have a copy of Cr McCallum's 2013 statement, I am happy to follow-up with the Southland District Council and see if they still have a copy on their files or not.

Please let me know.

Regards
Jan

Jan Brown

Environment Southland Te Taiao Tonga

P 03 211 5115
Cnr Price St & North Rd, Private Bag 90116, Invercargill 9840
Environment Southland's office will be closed over the Christmas period from 1pm on Tuesday 24 December until 8am on Monday 6 January.

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From: Douglas Black

Dear Jan Brown,
Thank you for your prompt reply on your return from holiday! I was not expecting it so quickly and it slipped under my radar for a while.

2013 is now such a long time ago that I believe Cr McCallum's statement should be updated to have any value to Southland residents and so I would request that you ask him to provide an updated statement against which he may be held accountable for his current Council term of office.

I am sorry that you have had to do so much work to respond to my request, and would like to suggest that once fully collected, the information I have requested be put on the ES website for all to access, and that this be done routinely for future elections, in the interests of democratic transparency and accountability.

Once again, I am happy to hear from you as soon as possible, and appreciate the speed of your responses to my request.

Yours sincerely,

Douglas Black

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From: Jan Brown
Southland Regional Council

Hello Mr Black

Thanks for your email.

I note that your request arose from a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request. In that regard, we are only able to provide information that we "hold", which I have done, and I have advised you that we do not hold the information you requested, relating to Cr McCallum.

I would suggest, should you wish to obtain this information, you contact Cr McCallum directly - his contact details are is freely available on our website - and his email address is [email address]

I note that the candidate statements for all candidates, including the successful and unsuccessful candidates, are available on our website - if you refer to the candidates page you will locate them there. But again, that is only for those contesting the elections, and not otherwise.

I advise you that you have the right to complain to the Ombudsman if you believe that information has been withheld.

Regards
Jan

This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate,distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version.

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From: Douglas Black

Dear Jan Brown,
Thank you for your reply.

I have been surprised that ES have not actually been holding some of the information I have requested, which has made it difficult for you to supply the information easily.
I hope that you agree that all of the information I requested should be available on the ES website, including up-to-date personal statements by all current councillors, for all Southland residents to see.

However, I appreciate the special efforts you have made to provide the information I requested, and I will take up the remaining issue with Councillor McCallum directly, and so will advise FYI that my request is now complete.

Yours sincerely,

Douglas Black

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