29 July 2024
Sue
[FYI request #27072 email]
Kia ora
Your Official Information Act request, reference: GOV-032747
Thank you for your email of 30 May 2024, asking for the fol owing information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act):
Request 1: I request that you please correct any misunderstanding, and specify where else claimant
information is held by ACC other than the EOS or email system.
Request 2: I request the complete table of contents for information held in EOS at the Party level.
Request 3. I request the complete table of contents for information held in EOS at the claim level.
Request 4. If claimant information is held in a location other than the EOS system, please provide
me with the table of contents for all information held in the other system(s).
Our response
I refer to your message via fyi.org.nz of 15 July 2024 declining to provide the further informa�on that ACC
sought to be able to deal with your request.
I note that ACC has received seven other messages in iden�cal terms on 15 July 2025 from someone using
the same name as you in rela�on to requests that ACC is s�ll considering and one in rela�on to a request
that ACC has recently declined, however none of those messages acknowledge that they are all sent by the
same person, despite ACC’s request that you should do so if that is the case.
ACC sent a message to you of 5 July 2024 explaining in detail why ACC needed informa�on about yourself
and the reasons for this official informa�on request.
ACC notes that you do not accept ACC’s explana�on jus�fies it asking for the informa�on it has sought and
claim that ACC is trea�ng you inconsistently with the way it treats others.
As ACC has previously explained to you, the Ombudsman accepts that where an agency receives an official
informa�on request like yours it may need to ask the requestor about themselves and the reasons for their
request.
ACC is trea�ng you no differently than it would anyone else whom it might reasonably ask if their request
was one of many related requests that could poten�al y be responded to together or refined in the ways
al owed by the Official Informa�on Act.
For the reasons that fol ow, ACC now declines your request.
• Over the past two months ACC has received more than 40 apparently closely related official
informa�on requests that also appear to be made by or on behalf of the same person.
GOV-032747 Page 1 of 3
• These include a significant number of requests apparently made by you under the same name,
including the eight other separate requests where ACC received iden�cal messages from the
requestor on 15 July, and other requests that are either anonymous or made under other names.
• Al of these 40 or more informa�on requests require considerable expense and effort for ACC to
respond to. ACC es�mates that it is currently al oca�ng more than the equivalent on one ful �me
employee to respond to each of these requests separately, despite the fact that they seem closely
related. It would likely require even more expense and effort to produce all of the informa�on
sought in each of these requests.
• In one of the requests apparently made under your name, the requestor has acknowledged having
made more than one request, but neither they nor you have provided any details of any other
requests so to assist ACC to consider them together.
• ACC has decided that you, or people closely related to you, have probably made al of the large
number of recent requests men�oned above whether made under your name or not.
• The way that you, or people ac�ng for you, appear to have asked for a wide range of informa�on in
many separate requests rather than include al ques�ons in one request interferes with ACC’s ability
to determine whether and how it might be able to apply various provisions of the Official
informa�on Act to deal with your request. Those provisions relate to whether the requests taken as
a whole require substan�al colla�on or research so as to:
o al ow ACC to decline some or al of the requests under s18(f) of the Act;
o consider combining your request with any other requests made by you under s18A(2) of the
Act;
o ful y to consider fixing a charge for providing the documents concerned under s15 and
s18A(1) of the Act.
• ACC considers that your request is frivolous or vexa�ous in terms of s18(h) of the Act. Your request
appears to be part of a wider course of conduct making numerous official informa�on requests in a
way that prevents ACC from applying the parts of the Official Informa�on Act that protect agencies
from being put to unreasonable effort and expense in responding to official informa�on requests.
You have declined to assist ACC by providing informa�on that might permit ACC to deal with your
request along with many other related requests. ACC has received similar refusals to assist in the
eight other requests referred to above. Your request and your refusal to answer ques�ons about it
appear to be part of a course of conduct designed to prevent ACC from taking legi�mate steps to
minimise the costs and inconvenience of responding to a series of related requests.
If ACC is wrong and your request is not one among many related requests then please let me know
urgently, or if you prefer, take the issue to the Ombudsman in the way set out at the end of this message.
ACC sought the same information from each of the requestors in as many of the related requests as it has
been able to identify and has not received information from any of them to al ow it to work out how to
consider and respond to the requests in the way required by the Act.
GOV-032747 Page 2 of 3
If you have any questions about this response, please get in touch
You can email me a
t [email address]. If you are not happy with this response, you can also
contact the Ombudsman vi
a [email address] or by phoning 0800 802 602. Information
about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
Ngā mihi
Christopher Johnston
Manager Official Information Act Services
Government Engagement
GOV-032747 Page 3 of 3
Document Outline
