23 January 2019
JAC Preston
fyi‐request‐9189‐[email address]
Dear Mr Preston
Request for information
I refer to your Official Information Act 1982 (
OIA) request dated 4 December 2018 where you
requested the following:
“all outgoing communication between Southern Response, its board, executive team,
and any employees, and Thompson & Clark. Specifically I request copies of all
emails sent from Southern Response to the domain tcil.co.nz. I request all emails
from April 2012 through June 2018 which were sent to the domain tcil.co.nz.”
In conjunction with the release of the State Services Commission Inquiry Report, on 18
December 2018 Southern Response proactively released all information it had provided to
the Inquiry, including correspondence between it and Thompson & Clark up to and including
16 November 2017.
This information can be found at:
http://southernresponse.co.nz/docman/ssc
Communication to TCIL during the period from April 2012 through 16 November 2017 that is
publicly available has not been included with your current request (section 18(d) of the OIA).
In response to your request, we enclose:
all emails sent from Southern Response to the domain tcil.co.nz in relation to OIA
consultation during the period from April 2012 through 16 November 20171; and
all emails sent from Southern Response to the domain tcil.co.nz from 17 November
2017 through June 2018
Duplicated information has been deleted from the files enclosed.
Certain information within the enclosed materials has been withheld pursuant to the following
sections of the OIA:
section 18(d) – the information is publicly available;
section 9(2)(a) – withholding the information is necessary to protect the privacy of
natural persons, and this is not outweighed by other public interest considerations;
section 9(2)(b)(ii) – release of the information would be likely unreasonably to
prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of
the information, and this is not outweighed by other public interest considerations;
1 As explained in the Proactive Release Cover Note (refer the link above), consultation between SRES and TCIL
over previous OIA requests for some of the documents included in the proactive release (under the OIA and
Privacy Act) had been withheld on the basis that this consultation is outside the scope of the proactive release
and was conducted under the OIA with an expectation of confidentiality.
section 9(2)(h) - withholding the information is necessary to maintain legal
professional privilege, and this is not outweighed by other public interest
considerations;
section 2(i) – official information does not include information contained in any
correspondence between the office of the Ombudsmen and an organisation which
relates to an investigation conducted by an Ombudsman.
You have a right to ask the Ombudsman to review this decision. To do so, you can visit their
website -
http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/ .
Yours sincerely
Casey Hurren
General Manager – Legal & Strategy