A requester sought access to a Hawke’s Bay Regional Councillor’s email and telephone communications with specified third parties between 8 and 25 August 2016. When the request was refused, the requester made a complaint to the Ombudsman under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA).
Most of the communications in question were conducted and stored on the Councillor’s private email account. In the course of the Ombudsman’s investigation, parties suggested that information stored in a personal email account was not official information and therefore was not subject to the LGOIMA. The Ombudsman did not accept this argument.
The question of LGOIMA’s application turned on whether the Councillor had sent or received the communications while acting in his official capacity as a Councillor. The LGOIMA could not be circumvented by conducting or storing those communications on private email accounts or personal devices.
After carefully reviewing the nature and content of the communications and the context in which they were sent and received, the Ombudsman concluded that the LGOIMA applied to some of the requested communications.
However, the Ombudsman also formed the opinion that, in this case, section 7(2(c)(ii) of the LGOIMA justified the withholding of some information to protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources.
This case note is published under the authority of the Ombudsmen Rules 1989. It sets out an Ombudsman’s view on the facts of a particular case. It should not be taken as establishing any legal precedent that would bind an Ombudsman in future.
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