The Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) is designed to make government activities more open and transparent to the public.
It has two very important roles:
People in New Zealand can request government information (official information) and can expect it to be made available unless there is a good reason to withhold it.
The Official Information Act 1982 (often referred to as the OIA) enables citizens, permanent residents, visitors to New Zealand, and body corporates registered or with a place of business in New Zealand, to make a request for official information held by government agencies.
The Act also sets out a number of reasons for which information may be withheld. These reasons include preservation of personal privacy and protection of information which has been received in confidence. However, even where there is good reason for withholding it, information will still be released if there are overriding considerations which mean it is in the public interest to release it.
Please direct any Official Information Act (OIA) requests for Counties Manukau Health to hnzOIA@health.govt.nz or by filling out the form below.
We will acknowledge your request when we receive it, and we aim to action it (or contact you for further clarification) within 20 working days. We will advise of our decision as to release of documents/ information in our response.
Please note that, like all DHBs across New Zealand, Counties Manukau Health has begun a process of proactive disclosure, which means OIA responses will be publicly available via our website around 10 days after they have been released. Our response will advise you if we intend to publish the response, (with personal information removed) and related documents on the Counties Manukau website. If you advise us of special reasons why proactive disclosure should not apply to your response, we will consider this.
More information about the Official Information Act, including recommendations on how to submit a request, and what to do if you wish to seek a review of a response, along with Ombudsman Guides are available from the Office of the Ombudsman
Requesting official information is free, although we can charge a reasonable amount if it will take a lot of work to supply the information requested, including substantial collation and research. You will be informed of any charges before your OIA request proceeds, and asked if you would like to continue with your OIA request. Find out more
If you have concerns regarding the way an OIA request was treated or processed by Te Whatu Ora, you can make a complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman
Those concerns can relate to the refusal to provide information, the breach of a statutory timeframe, the decision to extend a timeframe or impose a charge, or the imposition of conditions on the release of information.
The Ombudsman’s role is to investigate and review Te Whatu Ora's decision. The Ombudsman does not release the withheld information itself, but may issue a recommendation to Te Whatu Ora to release the information if the Ombudsman considers release appropriate.
We publish a range of information on our website.
We recommend you check this before submitting a request. The repository can be search by release date, requestor, key words and categories.
Information about our staff numbers, financial performance and strategic direction is on our website.
The following documents may already provide what you need:
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