Kia ora Bob

 

This email acknowledges your below request for information made under the
Official Information Act 1982.

 

Your request has been forwarded to the appropriate section of NZ Transport
Agency Waka Kotahi for response. They will contact you if they require
clarification of your request, more time to respond, or if your request
has been transferred to another organisation to respond to. Unless more
time is required, NZ Transport Agency will send a response to you within
20 working days of receiving your request – in this instance on or before
27 February 2025.

 

If you would like to discuss your request with NZ Transport Agency, please
contact us by email at [1][NZTA request email].

 

Ngâ mihi

 

Ministerial Services
Te Waka Kôtuia | Engagement & Partnerships
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi

[2]Connect with us on Social Media

 

[3][IMG]

 

 

 

show quoted sections

Kia ora Bob

 

Clarification of Official Information Act request

 

I write concerning your Official Information Act (the Act) request made on
29 January 2025 for the following information:

 

 1. I am requesting all emails and other forms communications between
NZTA/NZTA contractors and Insurance companies covering topics such as
road quality, insurance claims and any statistics or trend analysis.
 2. I would also request from NZTA and any roading contractors statistics
around payouts for damage to vehicles, broken down by year and region
if available

 

I would like to clarify your request with you so that we can better locate
and provide you with the information you are seeking.

 

With regards to the first aspect of your request:

o Your request is very broad in nature and is likely to be refused under
section 18(f) of the Act as it would require substantial manual
collation to locate and prepare the information in scope of your
request.  
o I would like to suggest that you consider including a timeframe so we
can narrow the scope of your request and determine if we would then be
able to respond to it. Is there a particular year (e.g. 2024), that
you would be interested in correspondence for?
o Can you please also confirm whether you are seeking information
between NZTA and its contractors on these matters, as well as between
NZTA and insurance companies, or if you are solely interested in NZTA
(and its contractors) communications with insurance companies?

 

With regards to the second aspect of your request:

o All payouts for damage to vehicles are made under an obligation of
confidence, and thus the value of these payouts cannot be released
under the Act.
o However, we would be able to provide you with the number of payouts
that have been made each year (please specify a time period – e.g.
last five years), and the combined total value of those payouts. Can
you please confirm if you would like to refine your request to be for
this information instead?

 

Please confirm clarification of your request by 12 February 2025. If I do
not hear from you by this date, I will progress your request as it
currently stands, which is likely to result in a partial 18(f) refusal,
and the withholding of the information relating to payouts for damaged
vehicles.

 

Please feel free to get in touch with any questions or further
clarification of the information you are seeking.

 

Ngā mihi

 

Ministerial Services
Te Waka Kōtuia | Engagement & Partnerships
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi

[1]Connect with us on Social Media

 

[2][IMG]

 

 

show quoted sections

Kia ora Bob,

 

Thank you for your earlier clarification of your request. We had carried
out a preliminary email sweep of 58 key staff email inboxes using key
words “damage”, “claim”, insurance”, ”compensation”, “road quality”,
“statistics, “trend analysis” for the past 2 years, which returned 26,624
items. Our email search is automated and not able to sort and filter
emails by categories, for example, only external or only internal
correspondence. All emails would need to be manually opened one by one and
reviewed to determine whether or not they fall within the scope of your
request. We consider that this exercise would require a substantial amount
of time and resources and would impose an unreasonable administrative
burden on NZTA. Your request as it currently stands is likely to be
refused under section 18(f) of the Official Information Act (the Act).

 

To assist us in searching for the requested information so that we could
provide a meaningful response to you, we would really appreciate if you
could narrow the scope down further to a manageable level. It may be
possible to chieve this by adding very specific key words to the search,
further reducing timeframe and limiting the number of email inboxes
searched to 1-2 key people.

 

Knowing why this information is requested may also help us determine more
exact parameters for searching and which emails may fall within scope of
your request. Although you are not obliged to do so, it would be helpful
if you could please indicate the reason for your requesting this
information.

 

If you are not able to refine your request for emails further, perhaps
instead of emails we could search for different documents? However, for
this we would also need to know what exactly you are looking for through
this request.

 

We will be happy to reconsider your refined request. Please note that,
under Section 15(1)(AA) of the Act, the revised request may be treated as
a new request for the purpose of calculating the time period for response
under the Act.

 

It would be great to hear back from you by the end of the week (21
February).

 

Thank you.

 

Ngā mihi

 

Ministerial Services
Te Waka Kōtuia | Engagement & Partnerships
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi

[1]Connect with us on Social Media

 

[2][IMG]

 

 

 

show quoted sections

Kia ora Bob

 

Thank you for initially refining your request on 7 February 2025 made
under the Official Information Act 1982 and for your further response
today.

 

Your request has been forwarded to the appropriate section of NZ Transport
Agency Waka Kotahi for response. They will contact you if they require
clarification of your request, more time to respond, or if your request
has been transferred to another organisation to respond to. Unless more
time is required, NZ Transport Agency will send a response to you within
20 working days of receiving your request – in this instance on or before
7 March 2025.

 

Please be aware that the timeframe for your request has been re-set in
accordance with Ombudsman Guidance which states that if clarification is
sought within seven working days of the request, the timeframe for
responding can be re-set. Further information can be found at page 13 of
[1]https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/site...

 

If you would like to discuss your request with NZ Transport Agency, please
contact us by email at [2][NZTA request email].

 

Ngā mihi

Ministerial Services
Te Waka Kōtuia | Engagement & Partnerships
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi

[3]Connect with us on Social Media

 

[4][IMG]

 

 

show quoted sections