IR-01-22-31992
17 November 2022
Mark Hanna
[FYI request #20872 email]
Tēnā koe Mark
Request for information
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request dated 16 October 2022.
You asked:
Please release the following information:
1. TOR data for the 1 January - 31 December 2021 reporting period, in the same
format as was released for the January - December 2020 reporting period (ref IR-
01-21-29521).
Please also explain any relevant caveats that should be kept in mind when
analysing this information.
Please provide all information, including the response letter, in an accessible,
searchable format. Please provide the TOR data in a machine-readable format
such as CSV or XLSX. I’d be happy if the XLSB format that has been used to
release the data covering 2020 is used again.
I am writing in response to your request for the release of 2021 Tactical Options data. As
previously agreed, due to the extensive data preparation required, Police will release the
data after the Annual Tactical Options report has been produced, as much of the work
required will have then been completed. This arrangement, in conjunction with the
compromise reached in consultation with the Office of the Ombudsman regarding the
scope of your request, enables us to fulfil your request with a reasonable number of
hours work. I acknowledge the successful outcome achieved using this process
previously and reiterate my anticipation of being able to fulfil a request for the data when
the report has been produced.
Police National Headquarters 180 Molesworth Street. PO Box 3017, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Telephone: 04 474 9499. Fax: 04 498 7400. www.police.govt.nz
The Radio NZ article you have cited appears to be based on an OIA response Police
provided to another requestor which read, “…data from 2021 Tactical Options reports is
currently being quality-checked, coded, and analysed for the 2021 Tactical Options
Annual Report...”
This process of data preparation is still underway. In November 2021, Tactical Options
reporting shifted to a new database; you may have seen the new Tactical Database
mentioned in the 2020 Annual Tactical Options Report. The Tactical Database represents
an improvement in Tactical Options data capture and management. However, because
this change occurred part way through the calendar year, 2021 Tactical Options data is
currently spread across two databases and stored in different formats and with some
differences in the data fields. Police has been working on translating data from the old
TOR database to combine with the Tactical Database. This data migration and testing
process is more intensive than the usual data preparation processes and requires
substantial staff resource. I expect that the data migration process will soon be complete,
at which point Police will be able to proceed to completing the usual data preparation
process for the 2021 Annual Report.
On this basis, your request is refused under section 18(f) of the OIA, as the information
requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or research. We would
welcome re-submission of your request after the Annual Tactical Options Report has
been published. Alternatively, we would be happy to proactively release the Tactical
Options dataset to you after the 2021 Annual Tactical Options Report has been
produced. In order for us to proactively contact you when the data is ready, you would
need to provide an email address that we could send the data to.
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
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Yours sincerely
Inspector Jason Ross
Acting Director Capability
