New LGOIMA calculator launched

Today the Chief Ombudsman has launched an online calculator that will make it easier for you, and local government agencies, to estimate the maximum timeframe for responding to an official information request.

The new Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA) calculator sits alongside the existing Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) calculator on both the home page and official information calculators page of the Ombudsman NZ website.

To estimate the latest possible date for a response to a LGOIMA request, enter the date your request was received by a local government agency into the calendar field. Select the ‘calculate latest date’ button and it will display the latest possible date you can expect to receive a response. If you have already used the OIA calculator, you will find the LGOIMA calculator works in much the same way.

While the LGOIMA calculator takes into account the Christmas holiday period and public holidays when estimating the latest possible date for a response, it does not take into account regional anniversary dates.

To check whether a regional holiday falls between the date the agency received your request, and the response date generated by the LGOIMA calculator, use the public holidays and anniversary dates page of the New Zealand government website.

If you find that the the agency you have submitted your LGOIMA request to is affected by a regional anniversary holiday in the response window (that is, the time between your request was received and the agency must respond), the calculator will advise you to add one working day to the date generated.

Find the LGOIMA calculator on the Ombudsman New Zealand website.

• Official information calculators