Tēnā koutou,

On or before 19 July 2022, NZ Police published parts 1, 3, 4, and 6–9 of the “Police Dogs” section of the Police Manual [1].

When these documents were published, an accompanying blurb said “Note: Parts 2 and 5 are coming soon.”

That was over 11 weeks ago, but as far as I can tell the chapters comprising parts 2 and 5 of the “Police Dogs” section of the Police Manual have still not been made publicly available.

Please release the following information:

1. For the Police Manual chapter “Police Dogs - Part 02 New Zealand Police Dog Section”:

1a. A copy of the latest version of this document.
1b. The date on which the current version of this document came into effect.
1c. The next planned review date of this document.

2. For the Police Manual chapter "Police Dogs - Part 05 Dog Team Training":

2a. A copy of the latest version of this document.
2b. The date on which the current version of this document came into effect.
2c. The next planned review date of this document.

3. The licence under which this information is released.

If possible, I would prefer that the information be released under the Creative Commons Attribute 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0) [2], which is recommended under the NZGOAL framework [3]. Cabinet has invited NZ Police to take NZGOAL into account when releasing copyright material and non-copyright material to the public for re-use [4].

If NZ Police decides to refuse my request under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act 1982 because the information will soon be publicly available, I ask that you also provide me with some detail as to the plan for when these documents will be made publicly available. The Ombudsman’s guideline on section 18(d) refusals notes that this is not a legislative requirement, however:

“As a matter of good practice, agencies should provide the precise or approximate date by which the information will be published. A failure to do so may suggest that there is no reasonable certainty that the information will be published in the near future.”

Please provide this information in an accessible, searchable format without a watermark.

If any information needs to be withheld from a document, please ensure this is not done in a way that makes the surrounding content (such as other content on the same page) inaccessible.

Ngā mihi,
Mark Hanna

[1] https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publ...
[2] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/...
[3] https://www.data.govt.nz/toolkit/policie...
[4] https://www.data.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/...