Dear Samuel,

As consultations necessary to make a decision on your request are such
that a response cannot reasonably be given within the original time limit,
the University has extended the time limit for your request until 11
November 2025 under section 15A(1)(b) of the OIA. We will respond to your
request as soon as reasonably practicable.

 You have the right to make a complaint to an Ombudsman if you are
dissatisfied with this extension.

Yours sincerely,

 

Landon Watt
Legal Advisor
Office of the Vice-Chancellor

Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland  

 

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Dear Samuel,

 

I refer to your request of 15 September 2025.I apologise for the delay in
the University's response. The University’s response follows.

 

“Could you please provide a list of contracts the University entered into,
in 2024 and 2025, with external consulting firms; the topic of the work
undertaken (e.g., strategic planning); and the total cost of each contract
to the University”

 

We cannot provide all the information requested without substantial
collation or research. The official information held by the University
which we can provide without substantial collation or research is as
follows:

 

Supplier Currency 2024 2025   Total Nature of work
payments payments (2024–2025)
Multidisciplinary
consulting
PWC services
Consulting including
New NZD 414,466.77 199,427.25   613,894.02 strategy, digital
Zealand LP transformation,
technology, and
organisational
change advisory.
Strategic design
Nous Group and performance,
Pty NZD 169174.74 304627.97   473802.71 and
Limited transformation
services.
Insights Organisational
Catalyst AUD   9(2)(b)(ii)   9(2)(b)(ii) design and
Advisory strategy
Pty Ltd development.

 

The information provided above is not complete and we do not warrant its
accuracy - in particular, the descriptions in “nature of work” are
indicative only. Detailed and accurate financial information is provided
in the financial statements included in the University’s Annual Reports.
The University’s response constitutes a partial refusal of your request
under section 18(f) of the OIA. Further, the information requested for
Insights Catalyst Advisory Pty Ltd is withheld under section 9(2)(b)(ii)
to protect information where the making available of the information would
be likely unreasonably to prejudice their commercial position. You have
the right to make a complaint to an Ombudsman if you are dissatisfied with
the University’s response.

 

Yours sincerely,

Landon Watt
Legal Advisor
Office of the Vice-Chancellor

Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland 

 

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Dear Samuel,
I have looked into issue you raised concerning the table in the
University's response. Unfortunately fyi.org.nz does not appear to support
the html format for emails, so I believe their system converted the email
to plain text, which removed the table formatting from the data provided
to you by the University. I have provided that data again in an Excel
document, attached.
I do not believe the University's annual reports contain the external
consulting information requested; if this information was set out in our
annual reports, we would have provided you with copies of these or
alternatively directed you to the reports on our website and refused the
request under section 18(d), on the ground the information requested was
publicly available.
Yours sincerely,

Landon Watt
Legal Advisor
Office of the Vice-Chancellor

Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Samuel Mehr <[FOI #32316 email]>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2025 11:27 AM
To: Landon Watt <[email address]>
Subject: Re: Official Information Act request - UoA ref 2025-OIA-0230-Mehr
- response
Dear Landon Watt,

Thank you again for your response to my request. I have what I hope is a
brief follow-up request.

First, it appears that there was a copy/paste error in the text formatting
of your response, making it difficult to read the information
corresponding to each of the three suppliers. Could you please provide
either a screenshot of a clearly formatted table, or paste a
non-tab-delimited version of the information? (For example, "PWC Services"
appears to be the name of the first supplier, but I cannot tell which
other portions of the text correspond to the "Nature of work" for PWC
Services - is it "Multidisciplinary consulting" or also "LP
transformation, technology, and organisational change advisory", or
something else? This applies to all rows of the table, which are not
currently visible in the OIA response).

Second, in your response you state that "Detailed and accurate financial
information is provided in the financial statements included in the
University’s Annual Reports.” Can you please indicate the page number and
line number in the financial statements in the 2024 Annual Report where I
can find further information about the total costs of external consulting
to the university? I am having trouble finding the total costs of external
consulting in the 2024 Annual Report.

Many thanks for your time in responding to this request.

Samuel Mehr

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