11/09/2024
D Watson
By email to:
[FYI request #27043 email]
Dear D Watson
OFFICIAL INFORMATION ACT REQUEST 2024/51
On 23 July 2024 you made a request under the Official Information Act 1982 (the OIA) for the
following information:
Can you provide me with any reports that were conducted by consulting firms such as EY,
Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, Martin Jenkins and other local consultancies typically used by government
agencies since 2020 that looked into or reviewed any aspect of the electoral commission's
operations including audits of individual functions. I am trying to ascertain what was know prior
to the election about risks and issues that would be faced and any advise that may or may not
have been taken on board. Were any of the issues spotted by these consultancies or was such
consultancy insufficient and ineffective or lacking good terms. For example 'staffing issues' were
noted but was this raised by any independent party to the executive or head of departments and
not acted on or have any such consultation driven change that will prevent issues in future. I
would like to know how much each consultation cost.
We would firstly like to apologise for the delay in getting this information to you. As you will
appreciate, the large amount of information being released as part of this request has taken longer
to process than anticipated.
Please find attached the requested information. We have collated a table of the reports and
attached the reports themselves.
Annual reports required under the Public Finance Act 1989 include copies of the independent audit
reports, and are publicly available on our websit
e here. These are undertaken by the Office of the
Auditor General. The audit is normally conducted by Audit New Zealand, but has temporarily been
contracted out to KMPG. Costs of the audits can be found in our financial statements, which are
included in the annual reports.
We have only included material within documents that are in scope of your request, we have
redacted parts that are out of scope. Some contact details, such as phone numbers, email addresses
and some names have been withheld under section 9(2)(a) of the OIA which relates to the privacy of
natural persons.
In each case where redactions have been made under section 9(2)(a), consideration has been given
to and I am satisfied that the reasons for withholding of the information are not outweighed by
Electoral Commission
Level 4, 34-42 Manners Street, PO Box 3220, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
Telephone +64 4 495 0030
www.vote.nz | www.elections.nz
other considerations which render it desirable in the public interest to make that information
available.
In the interests of transparency, we release responses to Official Information Act requests every 3
months. We will publish this response with your personal details redacted.
You have the right under section 28(3) of the Act to make a complaint to the Ombudsman if you are
not satisfied with the response to your request. Information about how to do this is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by phoning 0800 802 602.
Yours sincerely
Karl Le Quesne
Chief Electoral Officer
Electoral Commission
Level 4, 34-42 Manners Street, PO Box 3220, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
Telephone +64 4 495 0030
www.vote.nz | www.elections.nz
