Enforcing the OIA

One of the most appalling things about the current Official Information Act regime is how it is enforced. Or rather, how it is not enforced. Complaints about delays - agencies not responding within the statutory time limit - are one of the most common types of complaint. And yet, for the past five years, the Ombudsman's approach has been to essentially refuse to investigate them unless forced to, giving delinquent agencies extra time to respond, and then refusing to make a formal finding of lateness against agencies if they do. This is done in the name of "early resolution" - clearing complaints off the books as quickly as possible, to avoid an embarassing backlog. But now, that approach is going to change:

Explaining his change of approach, Boshier told Newsroom he was “increasingly concerned about the delays requesters reportedly experience when seeking a decision on a request for official information and a growing perception that OIA performance is declining”.

“Delays in responding to requests can create suspicion and distrust and I simply cannot allow the act to be manipulated or undermined, either deliberately or inadvertently, by any agency or minister that is subject to it.”

While he would still try to resolve complaints informally and at the lowest possible level, from July a tougher approach would apply if the statutory time limits were not being met.

“I intend to make formal findings and recommendations in these cases and report them to the relevant government ministers and publicly to Parliament.”

Good. Because one of the problems with the current approach is that agencies face no pressure to improve. And so you get shit like this, where agencies say "we're not able to meet the due date, fuck you" (the police are notorious for doing this, as a quick browse of their responses on FYI will show). There's no consequences for breaking the law, and no shame for the agency or pressure on the Minister, so no incentive to do better. Hopefully the Ombudsman's new approach will change that.