I have laid the following complaint with the Ombudsman:

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Tēnā koe,

I would like to lodge a formal complaint regarding the refusal of a request for official information by NZ Police, citing Section 18(d) of the Official Information Act (as the information sought is apparently publicly available). The grounds of my complaint are that the request should not have been refused, and that NZ Police did not respond as soon as reasonably practicable.

In response to someone else’s earlier request for official information, the response by NZ Police said that NZ Police’s estimates of the potential social harm of cannabis was based on research “which is freely available on the internet”. However, the location of the research used by NZ Police to create these estimates was not conveyed, so my request was to ask for the specific location of this research.

The response from NZ Police was to refuse my request, as they stated that the information I had requested was publicly available. However, the response from NZ Police contains no information on how I could identify the specific research they used to form their estimates of the social harm of cannabis. Instead, it contains suggestions on how to find nonspecific research on this topic.

I am aware that the Ombudsman’s guidelines[1] on Section 18 of the Official Information Act regarding publicly available information states that, in the case where information is contained in a readily available publication:

“It is reasonable for the agency to also provide advice to the requester as to where and how this information can be obtained. It should not be assumed that the requester will know this.”

In this case, I believe the NZ Police may believe their instructions on finding nonspecific research on this topic may do this. However, the intent of my request was to identify and retrieve the specific research used by NZ Police to create the aforementioned estimates. I do not think asking for the location of this specific research is unreasonable, and I believe I made it clear in my request that this was the specific information I was after:

“Please specify what research the estimated potential social harm mentioned in Mr Johnston's request was based on, and where this research is freely available on the internet.”

I am also concerned that it may be the case that NZ Police does not know which specific research was used in the creation of these estimates, in which case they may be citing Section 18(d) instead of Section 18(e) or 18(g) to hide this fact and avoid potential embarrassment. However, I have no specific evidence of this.

Secondarily, I would also like to complain that NZ Police did not respond to my request as soon as reasonably practicable. Here is a brief timeline of all correspondence regarding this request to date:

2017/02/01 - NZ Police received my request.
2017/02/11 - Having received no contact from NZ Police regarding my request, I sent a follow-up asking for an acknowledgement that my request had been received.
2017/02/12 - I received an acknowledgement from NZ Police that my request had been received.
2017/03/02 - I received the response from NZ Police at 5:05 pm, refusing my request on the grounds that the information requested is publicly available.

Particularly given the nature of the response, I do not believe that it was not reasonably practicable for NZ Police to respond to my request earlier than late afternoon on the final day of the allowable 20 working days.

All correspondence between myself and NZ Police regarding this complaint can be found on the FYI website at this URL:

https://fyi.org.nz/request/5312-research...

I have also attached a zip file containing all correspondence I have had with NZ Police regarding this request. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if any part of my complaint is unclear, or if you require any more information from me.

Ngā mihi,
Mark Hanna

[1] http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/syste...

The person investigating my complaint regarding the response to this request has recommended I make a new, more explicit request for this information. I've made this new request here: https://fyi.org.nz/request/6084-specific...