Advisory Committee on the Student Services Fee (ACSSF)
Andrew Tipton made this Official Information request to Victoria University of Wellington
Currently waiting for a response from Victoria University of Wellington, they must respond promptly and normally no later than (details and exceptions).
From: Andrew Tipton
Dear Victoria University of Wellington,
I am writing to request some information about the Advisory Committee on the Student Services Fee (ACSSF). In previous years, this committee has also been known as the Advisory Committee on the Student Services Levy (ACSSL).
Some very brief information about the ACSSF appears on the VUW website:
https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/students/money/fe...
Please provide the following information about the ACSSF and the ACSSL:
(1) The current and historic (for past five years) Terms of Reference for the ACSSF and/or ACSSL.
(2) The current and historic (for past five years) membership lists for the ACSSF and/or ACSSL.
(3) A list of the dates and locations of the ACSSF and/or ACSSL meetings for the past five years.
(4) The agenda of each meeting of the ACSSF and/or ACSSL for the past five years.
(5) The minutes of each meeting of the ACSSF and/or ACSSL for the past five years.
(6) The decision papers and other outputs from the ACSSF and/or ACSSL meetings for the past five years.
(7) Copies of any reports, committee papers, etc. that were considered by the ACSSF and/or ACSSL during the meetings for the past five years.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Tipton
From: OIA Requests
Victoria University of Wellington
Kia ora
I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request of 10 December 2025.
We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible, and not later than 29 January 2026, being 20 working days after the date your request was received.
If you have any questions or concerns relating to your request in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Ngā mihi
Kayana Shaw (she/her)
Senior Advisor, Official Information and Privacy | Legal Services
Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington
http://www.wgtn.ac.nz/ | 0800 04 04 04
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From: OIA Requests
Victoria University of Wellington
Kia ora Andrew
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request of 10
December 2025, in which you requested:
1. “The current and historic (for past five years) Terms of Reference for
the ACSSF and/or ACSSL.
2. The current and historic (for past five years) membership lists for
the ACSSF and/or ACSSL.
3. A list of the dates and locations of the ACSSF and/or ACSSL meetings
for the past five years.
4. The agenda of each meeting of the ACSSF and/or ACSSL for the past five
years.
5. The minutes of each meeting of the ACSSF and/or ACSSL for the past
five years.
6. The decision papers and other outputs from the ACSSF and/or ACSSL
meetings for the past five years.
7. Copies of any reports, committee papers, etc. that were considered by
the ACSSF and/or ACSSL during the meetings for the past five years."
To respond to your request as it is currently framed would require
collating information from approximately 60 meetings over a five-year time
period. Accordingly, this email is to advise that your request would
likely require substantial collation and/or research to respond, creating
significant and unreasonable impact on the University's ability to carry
out its other operations. Accordingly, your request may be refused under
section 18(f) of the OIA.
In order to assist us in preparing a response, can you please confirm
whether you are happy to refine your request to be for information from
the 2024 and 2025 calendar years?
We would also be grateful if you can please clarify what you are seeking
to understand from the information requested, in case we can provide more
tailored information for you rather than all information discussed at
ACSSF/ACSSL meetings which may not have relevance for your purposes.
If there is any additional information you can provide that can assist us
to narrow the scope of your request, please let us know.
Please reply with confirmation of the above by 18 December 2025. If we do
not hear back from you in this time, we will proceed with your original
request.
Please note, any clarification or amendment of a request is considered to
be a new request for the purpose of calculating the maximum statutory
timeframe for response—see section 15(1AA) of the Official Information
Act.
Ngâ mihi
Kayana Shaw (she/her)
Senior Advisor, Official Information and Privacy | Legal Services
Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington
[1]www.wgtn.ac.nz | 0800 04 04 04
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From: Andrew Tipton
Kia ora Kayana,
Please see my responses to your questions below:
> In order to assist us in preparing a response, can you please confirm
whether you are happy to refine your request to be for information from
the 2024 and 2025 calendar years?
Yes, I would accept a response with the requested information for just 2024 and 2025, if that is what it takes to avoid your refusal of my request.
> We would also be grateful if you can please clarify what you are seeking
to understand from the information requested, in case we can provide more
tailored information for you rather than all information discussed at
ACSSF/ACSSL meetings which may not have relevance for your purposes.
The purpose of my request is to ensure that the ACSSF/ACSSL is accountable to the students that have paid the Student Services Fees/Levies. Students must be assured that the matters under consideration by the ACSSF/ACSSL have been properly decided. As such, my view is that the information which I have requested is precisely the information which is relevant to this purpose.
There is a strong public interest in the release of this information. My view is that any refusal of this request under section 18(f) is not appropriate.
Guidance from the Ombudsman [1] makes it clear that you are "required to create and maintain public records in an accessible form so they can be used for subsequent reference" (p. 8) and that "where the difficulty involved in meeting an official information request arises because of an agency’s own administrative failings, it may not be reasonable to refuse it on the grounds of substantial collation or research." (p. 9)
As the university is a Crown entity, the provisions of the Public Records Act 2005 section 17 apply. You are required to maintain your records in an accessible form, such that they can be used for subsequent reference. It is unfortunate that this seems not to be the case for the ACSSF and ACSSL meetings.
In light of the apparent difficulty that you will face in finding and collating the requested information, I am willing to accept an interim response (within the statutory timeframes) for the 2024 and 2025 information, followed (at some later date) by the 2021, 2022, and 2023 information.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Tipton
From: OIA Requests
Victoria University of Wellington
Kia ora Andrew
Thank you for your email of 16 December 2025 agreeing to refine your
request to be for the following:
“For the period 1 January 2024 to 10 December 2025:
1. The current and historic Terms of Reference for the ACSSF and/or
ACSSL.
2. The current and historic membership lists for the ACSSF and/or ACSSL.
3. A list of the dates and locations of the ACSSF and/or ACSSL meetings.
4. The agenda of each meeting of the ACSSF and/or ACSSL.
5. The minutes of each meeting of the ACSSF and/or ACSSL.
6. The decision papers and other outputs from the ACSSF and/or ACSSL
meetings.
7. Copies of any reports, committee papers, etc. that were considered by
the ACSSF and/or ACSSL during the meetings."
As mentioned in my email to you of 15 December 2025, this request is
considered to be a new request for the purpose of calculating the maximum
statutory timeframe for response (s 15(1AA) of the OIA refers). We will
endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible, and not later
than 4 February 2026, being 20 working days after the date your request
was received.
Please note, if you wish to request information for the 2021, 2022 and
2023 years you will need to submit this as a new request.
Finally, for clarity, the reasons for potentially refusing your original
request under s 18(f) of the OIA is due to the volume of information you
had requested to be collated. As noted in my email, you requested
information covering a five-year period including approximately 60
meetings, requiring significant work to retrieve, extract and compile
information relevant to your request in order to provide a response. You
may wish to refer to page 5 of the [1]Ombudsman’s guidance on s18(f) of
the OIA, which sets out what work contributes towards substantial
collation and research.
If you have any concerns, you have the right to seek an investigation and
review by the Ombudsman of this decision. Information about how to make a
complaint is available at [2]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800
802 602.
Ngā mihi
Kayana Shaw (she/her)
Senior Advisor, Official Information and Privacy | Legal Services
Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington
[3]www.wgtn.ac.nz | 0800 04 04 04
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Things to do with this request
- Add an annotation (to help the requester or others)
- Download a zip file of all correspondence (note: this contains the same information already available above).
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Andrew Tipton left an annotation ()
The university must comply with TEC funding conditions around the Student Services Fee:
https://www.tec.govt.nz/funding/funding-...
The requested information about the university's ACSSF isn't publicly available, which is likely to be a violation of the funding conditions. Let's see if the university provides the requested information, or if they will continue to insist that the ACSSF agenda and minutes are confidential.
Link to this