Level 2, Wintec House
Cnr Anglesea and Nisbet St.
Hamilton 3204
0800 86 22 84
info@tepūkenga.ac.nz
tepūkenga.ac.nz
15 February 2024
William James
By email:
[FYI request #25077 email]
Tēnā koe William
Request under the Official Information Act 1982 – Senior Leader email communication
I refer to your email dated 7 December 2023, requesting the fol owing information from Te Pūkenga
– New Zealand Institute of Skil s and Technology (Te Pūkenga):
… a PDF copy or the next best alternative of the Letter of Expectation that Te Pūkenga received from
the National Government's Tertiary Education and Skills Minister. I am seeking the full and
unredacted document.
Additionally, I am requesting access to any email communications from relevant senior leadership
team members, as listed on the Te Pūkenga website … [here you provided a link to our Leadership
Team webpage].
Specifically, I am interested in communications that discuss potential changes in
priorities for the new government, any dialogue about the future state of Te Pūkenga, and
discussions related to future planning. This includes considerations of signals for changes, general
concerns surrounding possible adjustments aligned with National's signalled 100-day action plan,
or any other matters of a similar nature.
To narrow the scope of the request, I am specifically interested in emails sent or received from the
night of the New Zealand General Election (Saturday, 14 October 2023) up to the date this email is
received and processed.
On 20 December 2023, you confirmed with my office withdrawal of the first part of your request for
a copy of the Letter of Expectations as we advised it was already publicly available on parliament’s
website. In the same email communication, you kindly refined the second part of your request by
providing keywords “
National [government]” and “
100 day plan” as keyword search terms.
On 18 January 2024 we wrote to you advising of an extension to the timeframe for making a decision
on your request to 16 February 2024. This letter provides a formal decision on your request under
the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA).
Email search and interpretation
We have interpreted the scope of your request to be for email correspondence sent or received by
the nine members of Te Pūkenga Executive Leadership team, as listed on Te Pūkenga website as at
the date of your request, from 14 October 2023 through to the date your email was received (8
December 2023) that contained the keywords “
National [government]” or “
100 day plan”.
We note the nine executive leaders at that time included:
• Peter Winder
• Gus Gilmore
• Dr Megan Gibbons
• Andrew McSweeney
• Paora Ammunson
• Keri-Anne Tane
• Teresa Pollard
• Michelle Teirney
• Ziena Jalil
As advised in our letter of 18 January, an email search was undertaken during this period to see
whether any emails were within scope of your request.
The decision
A table of the 18 emails within the scope of your request and our decision on release is at
Appendix
One. Copies of these 18 emails we are releasing to you are attached as one document at
Appendix
Two.
Some information has been withheld or refused under the fol owing sections of the OIA:
• 9(2)(a) to protect the privacy of natural persons
• 18(d) as the information is already publicly available
With regard to the information withheld under section 9 of the OIA, we do not believe the need to
withhold this information is outweighed by the public interest in its release. Some information has
also been redacted or removed from within the emails as it is outside the scope of your request.
Please note we have excluded several duplicate emails. We have also excluded some media emails
as they are publicly available.
You have the right to make a complaint to the Ombudsman under section 28(3) of the OIA if you are
not happy with this response. Information about how to do this is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by cal ing 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi
Gus Gilmore
Tumuaki Taupua | Acting Chief Executive
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