Dear Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand,

Under the Official Information Act, please provide a copy of the Teacher Code of Conduct relevant for the period Dec 15 - June 16.

Please also provide a copy of the Education Council's internal policy, procedures and guidelines to your complaint investigators.

This is requested urgently for the purpose of discovery.

Yours faithfully,

[Name redacted by admin]

Dear David Cramp,

Only the Privacy Act requires the identity of the requester, and it is withheld in this case to protect the child victim of teacher misconduct. You have now been notified privately of this. The information requested should be publicly available.

Note the current teacher code of conduct was updated after a period of significant consultation and published in June 2017. Any teacher actions/inactions can only be held against the benchmark of the relevant code of conduct at the time. You have removed the previous code of conduct from your website. We hereby request a copy. It should continue to be publicly available.

As a State Sector organisation, the complaint handling policies and procedures of the Education Council should also be publicly available. They must comply with the State Services Commission guidelines, Education Council regulations, Education Act, the rule of law, and the principles of natural justice. It is noted that the Privacy Commission's is available on their website.

Any actions/inactions of Education Council staff should be open to public scrutiny like any other public official. The Education Council has a duty to act in compliance with the law and with reasonable skill and care. Deliberately withholding your policies and procedures in order to avoid external scrutiny would be seen as acting without transparency and in bad faith.

It is noted there is significant public discontent in the conduct of the Education Council. It is overwhelmingly in the public interest that you act in good faith, particularly while there is a review of NZ's 'Tomorrow's Schools' education model.

Yours sincerely,

[Name redacted by admin]

Dear Pauline Barnes,

Thank you for providing the code as at December 2015 as requested. I refer to your current website for the teacher code of ethics:

https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/...

All links are for the 2017 code, not one link is for the document provided. So while you state the information is 'publicly available', yes, the 2015 pdf is indeed loaded on your website, there does not appear to be any reference or link to it accessible to a member of the public. If it was simply publicly available, as you have now provided the link to, then why did David Cramp not immediately refer to it instead of quibbling over the identity of the requester?

The complaint handling policies and procedures I asked for, are the internal complaint handling policies and procedures for your investigators. This is very different to the overall process you have referenced here: https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/....

A limited example of what I seek is detailed here by Alan Dodd in a presentation to ANZELA in 2016: https://www.lawyerseducation.co.nz/site/...

Investigation required:
 Issue identification
 Teacher notification and initial response
 Information gathering
 Text messages, school e‐mail account, hard drive analysis, phone 
records, external agencies (NZ Police, MOE, Ministry of Justice etc.)
 Teacher, employer, witness interviews
 Information / evidential analysis
 All information provided to teacher
 Report prepared with recommendation
 Teacher response sought
 Referred to CAC

As was previously noted, your investigation processes must comply with the principles of natural justice and guidance provided by the State Services Commission. The above example, if correctly followed, prioritises the response of the teacher.

There has been significant discontent by both teachers and students/families with the Education Council.
Here some publicly available examples:
- https://www.nzei.org.nz/documents/email/...
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/educati...
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/educati...
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/8...
- http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/educati...
- https://www.ppta.org.nz/advice-and-issue...

Significant discontent was also noted in the Education Council's consultation documents when the code of ethics was reviewed.

I am personally in contact with numerous parents and teachers who have complained to the Education Council about the conduct of teachers, after the school board of trustees or ECE management has either refused to accept any complaints or conducted an overtly biased investigation designed to avoid their own vicarious liability for student harm. The Education Council has repeatedly then accepted these biased school board or ECE management investigations, and teachers' dishonest explanations, without seeking further independent information, fairly seeking response from or balancing the evidence of the complainants.

- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/educati...
- https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zeala...
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/educati...
- http://www.ero.govt.nz/publications/stud...
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/educati...
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/educati...
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/educati...
- http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/10...
- https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic...

A consistent complaint is that the Education Council's investigative approach has been teacher-centric, and not impartial as required. Furthermore the Education Council has failed to act as a check and balance on the conduct of school boards, as you are required to under the Education Act. Parents only option is to then seek legal action against the board when they fail to address harmful or negligent teacher conduct - something beyond the financial means of most.

While the Tomorrow's Schools model, and the lack of checks and balances, is at the heart of the issue, the Education Council has a history of failing to exercise its powers to investigate teacher conduct in a fair and balanced way.

As you appear to be ignorant of any public concerns, I suggest the Education Council conduct some public consultation on the matter. I am encouraging those affected to make submissions to the Tomorrow's Schools Review panel.

I thank you for providing the conduct codes as originally requested. I look forward to receiving your internal procedures file for investigators.

Yours sincerely,

[Name redacted by admin]