14 March 2024
File Ref: 240129
Marie
[FYI request #25866 email]
Tēnā koe Marie
Thank you for your Official Information Act request received on 24 February 2024. You made the
following request:
1.
Please provide the policy on Worksafe officers investigating incidents under HSWA where
the victim/complainant is a friend to the officer. Ie if the victim visited the officer in the
weekend, outside office hours at their private house to complain. Would this be considered
a conflict of interest and how would this be managed? (For the avoidance of doubt the
example did not involve a Worksafe employee doing this).
2.
Worksafe NZ have a number of agencies with authority to investigate under the HSWA,
please provide any policies around conflicts of interest as above and if those agencies are
bound by any policies they need to adhere to for the integrity in enforcing HSWA and the
associated reputation of Worksafe NZ.
3.
Please provide the policy documents regards notifying a company that they are under
investigation. Ie any policy to actually notify the company. Or are Worksafe officers
allowed to call employees without notifying the company over an incident not deemed
Worksafe related by those involved. ie not at a place of work or undertaking work, not in
work hours and in the case of Maritime Transport Act 1994 has no business anywhere near
water or ports. Would Worksafe expect other agencies to maintain consistency in these
procedures.
4.
Under HSWA 2015 s198 Requirement of other regulator to notify WorkSafe of notifiable
event. This relates to an incident being reported under HSWA s57. S198,(2)(a)(b) requires
the duty of the other regulator to advise Worksafe if they intend to carry out an
investigation under HSWA. Please provide the expectation that Worksafe be notified of an
investigation under HSWA if an incident was reported under Maritime Transport Act 1994
s31 as a recreational incident and through a disgruntled worker/victim complains to his
MNZ officer friend that it is work related. This resulting in MNZ investigating under HSWA
and MTA. Would Worksafe expect to be notified of this HSWA investigation just because it
was reported under MTA s31 (deemed recreational) and not HSWA s57.
5.
Please provide the prosecution policy procedures to ensure that a prosecution is fair,
unbiased. Would an officer whose victim/friend is the complainant against his workplace
be allowed to investigate (lead investigator), and also be part of the prosecution team?
Information being released
Please find attached the following documents.
Item
Document Date
Document Title
Decision
1.
March 2019
Identifying and Managing Conflicts of Interest Policy Release
Information publicly available
The following information is in scope of your request and available online, as indicated:
Item
Document Date
Document Title
Website Address
2. 29 November 2023
How we make prosecution decisions
How we make prosecution
decisions | WorkSafe
Accordingly, I have refused your request for the information above under section 18(d) of the
Official Information Act – the information requested is publicly available. Any information removed
from the above documents will continue to be withheld under the Official Information Act for the
reasons identified in the documents.
In response to each part of your request:
1. WorkSafe’s
Identifying and Managing Conflicts of Interest Policy is released to you in full.
This policy only applies to people employed by WorkSafe.
2. There are other agencies in addition to WorkSafe who have authority (designation) to
investigate under HSWA. These designations are set by the Prime Minister, not WorkSafe.
Designated agencies are responsible for developing and adhering to their own policies in
relation to their HSWA responsibilities. This includes conflicts of interest policies. As such,
no documents exist for this part of your request. Therefore, I am refusing part of your
request under section 18(g) of the Official Information Act, see below for explanation of
withholding ground.
3. WorkSafe does not set expectations for other agencies – this is the responsibility of their
monitoring agencies. In the case of Maritime New Zealand, this is the Ministry of Transport.
Having consulted and searched internal records, WorkSafe has identified that it does not
hold information relating to question two and three of your request. Therefore, I am
refusing part of your request under section 18(g) of the Official Information Act:
that the information requested is not held by the department or venture or Minister of the
Crown or organisation and the person dealing with the request has no grounds for
believing that the information is either—
(i)
held by another department (for itself and for a departmental agency hosted by it
or an interdepartmental executive board serviced by it) or interdepartmental
venture or Minister of the Crown or organisation, or by a local authority;
(ii)
connected more closely with the functions of another department (for itself and for
a departmental agency hosted by it or an interdepartmental executive board
serviced by it) or interdepartmental venture or Minister of the Crown or
organisation or of a local authority:
4. Maritime New Zealand does not need to notify incidents notified under s31 of the Maritime
Transport Act 1994 to WorkSafe. Section 198(2)(b) applies only if a regulator other than
WorkSafe is notified of a notifiable event under section 56 of HSWA.
5. WorkSafe’s
How we make prosecution decisions policy is publicly available (link provided
above). How this policy is applied will depend on the circumstances.
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This reply addresses the information you requested. You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to
investigate and review my decision, and further information is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
If you require further assistance, please contact
[email address].
Ngā mihi,
Braden Sloper
Head of Strategy and Policy
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