02 November 2020
Anthony Jordan
[FYI request #13745 email]
Tēnā koe Anthony
Your Official Information Act request, reference: GOV-006784
Thank you for your email of 09 September 2020, asking for the fol owing information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act):
1.
Number of Personal Grievances, in bands per year from 2008, made against the ACC by
Employees (Excluding any Board members)
2.
Number of Personal Grievances, in bands per year from 2008, withdrawn by Employee/ex-
Employee
3.
Number of Personal Grievances, in bands per year from 2008, settled as the result of a Mediation
Hearing
4.
Number of Personal Grievances, in bands per year from 2008, settled as the result of a
Court/Legal Hearing
5.
Financial cost incl Legal Fees etc, in bands per year from 2008, settled as the result of a
withdrawal by Employee/ex-Employee
6.
Financial cost incl Legal Fees etc, in bands per year from 2008, settled as the result of a
Mediation Hearing
7.
Financial cost incl Legal Fees etc, in bands per year from 2008, settled as the result of a
Court/Legal Hearing
8.
Copy of ACC internal policy in processing and dealing with such Grievances
Notes on the information requested
We have interpreted your request for information “in bands” to mean information broken down by
year. We have reported by financial year, ie 1 July to 30 June.
Our response
1. Number of Personal Grievances lodged by ACC employees
Please refer to Appendix 1 for the number of Personal Grievances (PGs) lodged by ACC employees from
1 July 2008 to 30 June 2020 by year of lodgement.
2. Number of Personal Grievances withdrawn by Employee/ex-Employee
ACC does not record information to the level of detail requested in a readily accessible way. To extract
this data, we would need to find and manually review the records in approximately 190 staff personnel
files. Therefore, we are refusing this part of your request under section 18(f) of the Act, as it would
require substantial manual col ation and research to extract the data.
3. Number of Personal Grievances settled as the result of a Mediation Hearing
ACC has recorded the level of information requested only in the last two years fol owing a new process
being introduced. The number of PGs settled in 2018/19 and 2019/20 is provided in the table below.
The year of settlement may differ to the year the PG was lodged.
GOV-006784
To extract the data for earlier years we would need to find and manually review the records in
approximately 190 staff personnel files. Therefore, we are refusing this part of your request under
section 18(f) of the Act, as it would require substantial manual col ation and research to extract the
data.
Year
SPGs settled by mediation
2018/19
7
2019/20
4
4. Number of Personal Grievances settled as the result of a Court/Legal Hearing
We have been unable to identify that any PGs were settled as a result of going to court
.
5. Financial cost incl Legal Fees etc settled as the result of a withdrawal by Employee/ex-Employee
Please refer to our response to question 2 above. The same answer applies to this question.
6. Financial cost of Personal Grievances settled as the result of a Mediation Hearing
Year
Costs by year settlement paid $
2018/19
183,523
2019/20
41,000
We have responded to your requests for information on financial costs relating to Personal Grievances
(PGs) by providing the costs paid by ACC as a result of a settled PG. This is the only cost we can identify
in our systems as we cannot identify the time of ACC staff who worked on any PG. ACC staff do not
record their time against specific tasks.
7. Financial cost of Personal Grievances settled as the result of a Court/Legal Hearing
Please refer to our response to question 4 above. There are zero costs as there were no settlements as a
result of a PG going to Court.
8. Copy of ACC internal policy in processing and dealing with such Grievances
The information requested is attached in Appendix 2.
Who to contact
If you have any questions, you can email me a
t [email address]. If you are not happy
with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the Ombudsman. Information about how
to do this is available a
t www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by phoning 0800 802 602.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Sasha Wood
Manager Official Information Act Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
Page 2 of 3
GOV-006784
Government Engagement & Support
Appendix 1. Number of Personal Grievances lodged by ACC employees by year lodged
Financial Year
Number of PGs lodged
2008/09
9
2009/10
15
2010/11
18
2011/12
12
2012/13
7
2013/14
9
2014/15
14
2015/16
10
2016/17
8
2017/18
11
2018/19
17
2019/20
13
Accident Compensation Corporation
Page 3 of 3
Document Outline