Coast Council Warns Of Charges For LGOIMA Requests

Tuesday, 18 February 2025, 9:58 pm
Article: Lois Williams - Local Democracy Reporter

People asking the West Coast Regional Council complicated questions about its workings can expect to pay for the answers, the council is warning.

A meeting of the Corporate Services committee on Tuesday heard that requests for information under the Local Government Meetings and Information Act (LGOIMA) have surged from just 24 in 2021, to 104 in the past year.

Group Manager Jo Field reported that council staff had responded to 94 percent of the requests within the 20-day statutory timeframe.

The subjects of the requests ranged from complaints about the Taylorville Resource Park, to membership of council committees and council policy about preventing dog attacks on penguins.

Staff and council contractor Toni Morrison were getting through the requests in a timely fashion, Ms Field said.

But chief executive Darryl Lew said that came at a cost.

“I am seeing an uptick in the number of highly complex LGOIMAs that are taking a lot of time and I do think that some are being asked that don’t serve the community’s interests and are being asked for purposes that are less than desirable.“

On the other hand, many requests were quite legitimate and the council had managed to respond in time, as democracy required - but only by putting more staff onto the job, Mr Lew told councillors.

“I have been encouraging and probably demanding that where appropriate and legal, that we charge for those LGOIMAs.”

Committee chair Peter Haddock supported that decision.

“Some of these requests are very detailed and it’s a huge cost that gets passed on to the ratepayers. It is a statutory requirement I’m pretty sure the council will be charging.”

The council would communicate the potential charges upfront to people asking complex questions, Mr Lew confirmed.

“There are many LGOIMAs that should be approved [for] free but there are others that don’t fit that quality.”

The questioner would have the option of withdrawing or refining their request, if they were going to be charged, Mr Lew said.

About 10 percent of the council’s LGOIMA responses were provided in part, or with details redacted to protect privacy or commercial matters.

They included questions about payments to iwi entities, the (Grey River) dredge, breaches of Kokiri and Bathurst’s resource consents, and TTPP staff contracts.

- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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