Structure charts
Grant Carroll made this Official Information request to New Zealand Police
The request was partially successful.
From: Grant Carroll
Dear New Zealand Police,
Pursuant to the Official Information Act 1982 please provide me with copies of the Organisation Charts / Structure Charts for the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Eastern police districts.
I confirm that I am a New Zealand citizen resident in New Zealand.
Many thanks for your help with this.
Yours faithfully,
Grant Carroll.
New Zealand Police
Good Morning Grant,
I refer to your request for information made under the Official
Information Act 1982
You have asked for:
Dear New Zealand Police,
Pursuant to the Official Information Act 1982 please provide me with
copies of the Organisation Charts / Structure Charts for the Waikato, Bay
of Plenty and Eastern police districts.
I confirm that I am a New Zealand citizen resident in New Zealand.
Many thanks for your help with this.
Yours faithfully,
Grant Carroll.
I have considered your request under the OIA 1982, and refer you to the NZ
police website for this information that is available to the public.
[1]https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/stru...
Please consider this request now closed.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review my decision if you are
not satisfied with Police’s response to your request.
Kind regards
Kane Hunia
Sergeant
Waikato Information Requests Team
===============================================================
WARNING
The information contained in this email message is intended for the
addressee only and may contain privileged information. It may also be
subject to the provisions of section 50 of the Policing Act 2008, which
creates an offence to have unlawful possession of Police property. If you
are not the intended recipient of this message or have received this
message in error, you must not peruse, use, distribute or copy this
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From: Grant Carroll
Dear New Zealand Police,
You are either having trouble understanding my OIA request or your response is some sort of a joke.
If I had wanted to look at a map of the Waikato Police District I would have gone to the web page you have directed me to. My request was to be provided with Organisation Charts / Structure Charts of the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Eastern police districts not to be directed to a map of the Waikato Police District.
I wonder if you would mind re-considering my request or do I just need to make a complaint to the Ombudsman?
Many thanks.
Yours faithfully,
Grant Carroll.
New Zealand Police
Good Morning Mr Carroll,
The web link that I provided to you was for the New Zealand Police
organisational command structure for the whole country.
From there you are able to find and research the command structure from
the Police Commissioner down to the 12 District Commanders and subsequent
Area Commanders and locations of the Area Headquarters.
The Area Commanders are Commissioned Officers holding the rank of
Inspector.
In each Area there are a number of different managers being both
Inspectors and Senior Sergeants managing Sergeants and Detective
Sergeants.
The Sergeants and Detective Sergeants supervise up to 8 Constables or
Detectives per working group, ie PST, CIB, Youth, Prosecutions, Strategic
Traffic Units, Highway Patrol Group, Dog section etc etc
In regards to your specific question of;
Please provide me with copies of the Organisation Charts / Structure
Charts for the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Eastern police districts.
I am declining your request under Section 6(c) OIA 1983 as there is
potential for an operational risk to the organisation in exposing the
safety of Police staff and resources working within the three Police
Districts. In declining your request it is under S.6(c), preventing the
risk of offending against the Police as an organisation by exposing how
and what the structure and organisation charts look like and more
importantly how and when Police staff resources are deployed.
This is a matter of confidentiality to the organisation so that the Police
can safely carry out their duties required of them.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review my decision if you
are not satisfied with Police’s response to your request.
Kind regards
Kane Hunia
Sergeant
Waikato Information Requests Team
show quoted sections
From: Grant Carroll
Dear Sergeant Hunia,
Detailed structure/organisation charts for the Canterbury and Auckland City Police Districts and basic structure/organisation charts for the Northland, Waitemata and Counties-Manukau Police Districts have previously been provided following recent OIA requests by me on the FYI.org.nz website.
Coincidentally, a very detailed breakdown of staff in the Wellington Police District was released on this website in response to an OIA request by another person as recently as yesterday.
So I am at a complete loss to know why this information can't be provided for the three districts I have asked about but can be released for six of the other police districts in the country. Irrespective of your reasoning, on the basis of the above, I will make a complaint to the Ombudsman.
Yours faithfully,
Grant Carroll.
New Zealand Police
Dear Sir,
Perhaps you should try the eastern and BOP districts directly as I only
process requests for the Waikato District.
Regards
Kane Hunia
To: OIA/LGOIMA requests at New Zealand Police
<[1][New Zealand Police request email] >
From: Grant Carroll < [2][FOI #11521 email]>
Date: 01/11/2019 02:47PM
Subject: Re: Official Information Act request for Organisation Charts /
Structure Charts for the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Eastern police
districts.
Dear Sergeant Hunia,
Detailed structure/organisation charts for the Canterbury and Auckland
City Police Districts and basic structure/organisation charts for the
Northland, Waitemata and Counties-Manukau Police Districts have previously
been provided following recent OIA requests by me on the FYI.org.nz
website.
Coincidentally, a very detailed breakdown of staff in the Wellington
Police District was released on this website in response to an OIA request
by another person as recently as yesterday.
So I am at a complete loss to know why this information can't be provided
for the three districts I have asked about but can be released for six of
the other police districts in the country.Irrespective of your reasoning,
on the basis of the above, I will make a complaint to the Ombudsman.
Yours faithfully,
Grant Carroll.
===============================================================
WARNING
The information contained in this email message is intended for the
addressee only and may contain privileged information. It may also be
subject to the provisions of section 50 of the Policing Act 2008, which
creates an offence to have unlawful possession of Police property. If you
are not the intended recipient of this message or have received this
message in error, you must not peruse, use, distribute or copy this
message or any of its contents.
Also note, the views expressed in this message may not necessarily reflect
those of the New Zealand Police. If you have received this message in
error, please email or telephone the sender immediately
References
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1. mailto:[New Zealand Police request email]
2. mailto:[FOI #11521 email]
From: Grant Carroll
Dear Sergeant Hunia,
My request was made to New Zealand Police via the FYI.org.nz website.
My understanding of the Official Information Act 1982 is that if a request needs to be transferred internally within the organisation it was directed to that is the responsibility of that organisation and not the responsibility of the requester.
I would therefore be grateful if my request could be transferred internally within New Zealand Police if that is considered necessary.
Many thanks.
Yours faithfully,
Grant Carroll.
Grant Carroll left an annotation ()
Many thanks for your annotation Mark, which is helpful, as usual.
I think I might be dealing with someone with less knowledge of the OIA than you have.
Cheers.
Grant.
From: GRIMSHAW, Bruce
New Zealand Police
Dear Grant.
I have received the following OIA Request from you:
“Dear New Zealand Police,
Pursuant to the Official Information Act 1982 please provide me with
copies of the Organisation Charts / Structure Charts for the Waikato, Bay
of Plenty and Eastern police districts.
I confirm that I am a New Zealand citizen resident in New Zealand.
Many thanks for your help with this.
Yours faithfully,
Grant Carroll.”
Before I can process your request, I must advise you of the following:
I hope to assist you with the Eastern Police District query.
However, you will need to contact the other Police Districts via their
respective OIA Request sites, for the other information that you require.
I need to know exactly what you are requesting and why you need this
information. Command Structures within the New Zealand Police are generic
and generally “mirror” one another.
Finally, via return email, could you please scan and attach two forms of
photographic identification (a current NZ Driving Licence and a current NZ
Passport would suffice).
Kind Regards, Bruce Grimshaw.
EASTERN police District OIA Requests.
Bruce Grimshaw
[1]cid:image001.png@01CC3A1E.F2588860 Station Support Officer
' +64 6 831 0700| Ext: 54119 |
P.O. Box 49 Hastings | * [2][email address]
Safer Communities Together
[3]http://nzpintranet/groups/PublicAffairs/... NZ Police on [5]http://nzpintranet/groups/PublicAffairs/... Follow [7]http://nzpintranet/groups/PublicAffairs/... NZ Police
[4]Facebook [6]@NZPolice on
[8]YouTube
===============================================================
WARNING
The information contained in this email message is intended for the
addressee only and may contain privileged information. It may also be
subject to the provisions of section 50 of the Policing Act 2008, which
creates an offence to have unlawful possession of Police property. If you
are not the intended recipient of this message or have received this
message in error, you must not peruse, use, distribute or copy this
message or any of its contents.
Also note, the views expressed in this message may not necessarily reflect
those of the New Zealand Police. If you have received this message in
error, please email or telephone the sender immediately
References
Visible links
2. mailto:[email address]
4. https://www.police.govt.nz/facebook
6. https://twitter.com/NZPolice
8. https://www.youtube.com/user/policenz
Mr Rodgers left an annotation ()
Same thing again!
A request made to NZ Police is a request made to NZ Police, you don't need to make multiple requests.
You do not need to state why you are requesting the information (other than to help clarify the request).
The licence number nonsense is not needed either - see the Ombudsman's guidelines for on-line requests and the fact that other Police OIA requests are completed without it.
I would consider a complaint to the Ombudsman.
Grant Carroll left an annotation ()
Thanks for your annotation Mr Rodgers.
I intend to clarify a few things here and if that doesn't result in the request being replied to I will absolutely be making a complaint to the Ombudsman
Cheers.
Grant.
From: Grant Carroll
Dear GRIMSHAW, Bruce,
Thank you for your reply and your statement that you hope to assist me with my request as it relates to the Eastern Police District.
In response to the subsequent paragraphs in your reply could you please note the following:
1) It is my understanding of the OIA (Official Information Act 1982) that if a request needs to be transferred internally within the organisation it was directed to that is the responsibility of that organisation and not the responsibility of the requester. If my request needs to be transferred internally within New Zealand Police I would be grateful if you would arrange this.
2) What I am requesting (see the request above) are Structure / Organisation charts for the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Eastern police districts. Over the last 20 months I have been provided with detailed Structure / Organisation charts for the Auckland City and Canterbury police districts and more simplified charts for the Northland, Waitemata and Counties-Manukau districts as a result of OIA requests I have made on the FYI.org.nz website. These charts were not generic and did not "mirror" each other but were specific for each district. If these charts exist for these five districts I think it is reasonable to assume that they also exist for the three districts I am enquiring about. In addition, a detailed breakdown of staffing for the Wellington Police District was released in response to another request on the FYI.org.nz website just four weeks ago. It is also my understanding of the OIA that no reason needs to given by a requester as to why they need the information being requested.
3) It is also my understanding of the Act that to be eligible to make a request the requester needs to be a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident, a person in New Zealand or a corporate entity. I can see nothing in the Act stating that a requester needs to provide two forms of photographic identification and I would be grateful if you could inform me of the reason you are asking me for this.
I hope this clarifies my request, which is now four days overdue.
Many thanks.
Yours sincerely,
Grant Carroll.
From: GRIMSHAW, Bruce
New Zealand Police
Good day One and All.
I am currently on my days off.
I will be back at work, in the Eastern Police District File Management
Centre, at 6 am on the 28th of November.
Thank you, Bruce Grimshaw.
From: ATKIN, Eric
New Zealand Police
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Dear Mr Carroll,
Further to your Official Information Act request received 23/10/2019, the
request for further information from you was made in error, and I
apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.
The points made in your subsequent email dated 25 November 2019 are
correct, and Police do not require any further information from you to
respond to this request.
I can confirm that Police are now actioning this original request.
Nga Mihi,
Eric Atkin
Regional Support Manager, Central Region (Bay of Plenty & Eastern)
Service Delivery
P 04 2139030
M 021 1917875
E [1][email address]
[2]cid:image002.png@01D58997.B604E9E0
[3]cid:image003.png@01D58997.B604E9E0[4]cid:image004.png@01D58997.B604E9E0[5]cid:image005.png@01D58997.B604E9E0[6]cid:image006.png@01D58997.B604E9E0
[7]cid:image007.png@01D58997.B604E9E0
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From: Grant Carroll
Dear ATKIN, Eric,
Thank you for your response to the effect that my OIA request is finally being responded to.
Given the difficulty I have had getting a simple request such as this actioned it probably goes without saying that the staff in your Waikato Information Requests Team and Eastern OIA Requests Team may need some training in dealing with OIA requests.
Thanks again.
Yours sincerely,
Grant Carroll.
From: Grant Carroll
Dear New Zealand Police,
I am contacting you to ask when I am going to be provided with the information I asked for in my request submitted on 23rd October.
A week after submitting it I was contacted by Sergeant Kane Hunia of the Waikato Information Requests Team referring me to information on the New Zealand Police website and telling me my request was now closed. When I pointed out that this was not the information I was seeking he replied that he was declining my request. I then informed him that I had been provided with the same information for five other police districts previously and he then suggested that I should try getting the information from the other districts myself. Obviously, I responded that from my understanding of the OIA if the request needed to be transferred internally this was the responsibility of the organisation the request was being made to and not my responsibility.
Nearly three weeks later I received a response from Bruce Grimshaw of Eastern District OIA Requests telling me he was hoping to assist me with my query but before he could process my request he would need to know why I needed the information and I would need to provide two forms of photographic identification. I then asked Bruce to note that from my understanding of the OIA I did not need to do either of these things in order to obtain information under the Act. He also indicated that I would need to contact the other districts for their information and I gave him the same response I gave to Sergeant Hunia.
A week ago I was contacted by Eric Atkin, your Central Region Support Manager, confirming that the requests made to me were made in error and that the points I made in response to these were correct.
After another week I still do not have the information and I am contacting you to ask when this is going to be provided, as the deadline for providing it was now two weeks ago.
Many thanks.
Yours faithfully,
Grant Carroll.
From: Grant Carroll
Dear New Zealand Police,
By law, I should have had a response to the information I requested on 23rd October before 21st November, which is now four weeks ago.
I presume the only way I can get clarity about when the information is going to be provided to me is to appeal to the Ombudsman.
Yours faithfully,
Grant Carroll.
From: ATKIN, Eric
New Zealand Police
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Eastern District Police Structure Nov 19.pdf
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Good Morning Mr Carroll,
Further to your OIA request for structure charts for the Eastern and Bay
of Plenty districts, I apologise for the delay in replying.
Unfortunately structure charts are not held centrally and need to be
collated manually district by district. Please find attached a copy of
the Eastern structure. I am collating the same information for the Bay of
Plenty district at the moment, and will have that for you on Monday.
Regards,
Eric
Eric Atkin
Regional Support Manager, Central Region (Bay of Plenty & Eastern)
Service Delivery
P 04 2139030
M 021 1917875
E [1][email address]
[2]cid:image002.png@01D58997.B604E9E0
[3]cid:image003.png@01D58997.B604E9E0[4]cid:image004.png@01D58997.B604E9E0[5]cid:image005.png@01D58997.B604E9E0[6]cid:image006.png@01D58997.B604E9E0
[7]cid:image007.png@01D58997.B604E9E0
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From: Grant Carroll
Dear ATKIN, Eric,
Thank you for that.
My request also included the structure / organisation chart for the Waikato District, if that could be provided as well.
Yours sincerely,
Grant Carroll.
From: ATKIN, Eric
New Zealand Police
Good afternoon Mr Carroll,
Please find attached the Structure for Bay of Plenty as requested. I apologise again for the delay in replying.
I am unable to provide any information on the Waikato structure as that information is not available to me. However, I believe Waikato district has already provided a response to your request.
Regards,
Eric
Eric Atkin
Regional Support Manager, Central Region (Bay of Plenty & Eastern)
Service Delivery
P 04 2139030
M 021 1917875
E [email address]
show quoted sections
From: Grant Carroll
Dear ATKIN, Eric,
Thanks for this Eric.
Unfortunately, Sergeant Hunia of the Waikato Information Requests team somehow believes that it is unsafe to release this information for his district, in spite of it being provided by eight of the other districts it has been requested from.
Yours sincerely,
Grant Carroll.
[User 7569 name removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Good Gosh what a ball ache this has been.
Grant Carroll left an annotation ()
You are not wrong there James.
In the 2018 Annual Report of the NZ Police there is a section (P35) entitled "Public Engagement : OIA Action Plan" which includes statements such as ".....leave the requestor with a positive experience of their interaction by being open and transparent", ".....to provide the best service possible and improve public satisfaction with Police OIA responses." and "This is an exciting opportunity for Police to champion the OIA as a valuable tool to build openness, communication, trust and respect with the communities we serve". I don't think anyone in the NZ Police who was involved with this OIA request has ever been told about this!
[User 7569 name removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
What an absolute laugh that is. The Police are one of (if not absolutely) the least transparent organisations in the country...
They will withhold information at all costs... I've had 100% of requests declined by Police overturned by the Privacy Commissioner or Ombudsman.
I recently had an OIA request turned down under the Privacy Act... The information sought was clearly not my personal information and I used the OIA form...
I seriously question the level of training any Police receive on processing OIA requests. I get a strong feeling OIA requests are fobbed off on to officers who have been reduced to ground duties by injury and never actually understand the importance of freedom of information laws.
Grant Carroll left an annotation ()
Just for anyone who is interested I finally received the rest of the information I requested after making a complaint to the Ombudsman, although not in the form I requested. This was accompanied by a letter and an email from Ministerial Services apologising for my being asked why I wanted the information, being asked to provide ID and generally getting the run around. As has been stated here previously the staff dealing with OIA requests seem to have little understanding of the Act and the only way to fix this is going to be them getting more complaints. I encourage anyone with a problem getting information to make a complaint.
Lisa left an annotation ()
Interesting. I am having the same issue with the insolvency office not understanding the OIA process. They also sent me the complete wrong information and it even came from the National Manager (whoever that is) yes I definately agree that for them to understand the process is for the public to make more requests. I had initially asked MP Clare Curran to advise on the OIA process for my query on bankruptcy admin costs. She had to contact the Office of Commerce & Consumer affairs to find out who I needed to contact. And that turned out to be not even the right person.
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Mark Hanna left an annotation ()
"Perhaps you should try the eastern and BOP districts directly as I only process requests for the Waikato District."
That's not your problem. Your request has been received by NZ Police. If it needs to be transferred elsewhere within the organisation, that is their responsibility. Not yours.
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