James
No address provided
Via email: [FYI request #29106 email]
28 November 2024
Kia ora James
Official Information Act request dated 7 November 2024
We refer to your email dated 7 November 2024 requesting information under the
Official Information Act 1982 (the Act). The answers to your specific questions are set
out below.
Request One: Number of employees if any, that have been made redundant between
January 1st 2024 and October 1st 2024 that were on a salary of $250,000 or more.
Response One: Disclosure of the number of employees made redundant with salaries
over $250,000 would risk identification of the individuals whose roles were made
redundant in the relevant timeframe. Accordingly, the requested information is
withheld on the basis of section 9(2)(a) of the Act: to protect the privacy of natural
persons.
Note that the total amount of compensation TVNZ pays for redundancy entitlements,
payment in lieu of notice, and any payments in settlement of disputes each year, as
well as the number of individuals to whom those payments relate is publicly available
in each of our
annual reports (available at the webpage
https://corporate.tvnz.co.nz/reports/). Request Two: Total amount of money spent on all contractors if any, between the
same dates.
Response Two: TVNZ contractor spend is recorded at business unit level, and covers
an extremely large variety of work, including, for example:
• Contracted staff working on special projects for the business;
• Team members in roles typically filled by freelancers or contractors because of
industry wide practices (for example, camera operators, makeup artists, sports
commentators, columnists for 1news.co.nz, security staff); and
• Talent fees for actors in commercials made by TVNZ’s creative and production
services team, Blacksand, or for contracted staff such as photography experts
working with Blacksand; and
• Contracted services including services for the building (such as security and
building maintenance).
In addition, spend is recorded to align with financial year timeframes.
We are unable to retrieve the information you have requested (at organisation wide
level, and over the specific timeframe) without substantial collation or research. Your
request is therefore declined in accordance with section 18(f) of the Act.
Request Three: Total amount of money if any, spent on external legal or HR
advice/contractors in the above time frames.
Response Three: TVNZ spent a total of $1,075,591.59 on external legal or HR
advice/contractors for the period 1 January 2024 to 1 October 2024. Note that this
relates to all spend in this category, including by way of example employment
disputes, legal fees for all TVNZ litigation, and legal advice provided by law firms on
specific matters (e.g. property law advice, advice on regulatory issues, advice on
intellectual property matters),
Please note that section 28 of the Act sets out the circumstances in which you may
make a complaint to the Ombudsman in order to seek an investigation and review of
this decision.
Yours sincerely,
Official Information Requests Team
TVNZ
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