Dear Wellington Regional Council,

As per Clause 1.4.5 of Schedule 5 of the Partnering Contract (page 142 of http://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/Transport/B...), the bus operators are required to have a staff training plan for each year.

I would like to request a copy of this training plan for all bus operators under the Metlink branding for the years of 2017, 2018 and 2019.

As for whether this data is "held" by the agency, I refer to s 2(6) LGOIMA.
"Any information held by an independent contractor engaged by any local authority in his or her capacity as an independent contractor is, for the purposes of this Act, deemed to be held by the local authority.", paraphrased "Information which an independent contractor to an agency holds in that capacity is deemed to be held by the agency"
I note that all the bus contractors are independent contractors engaged by GWRC on behalf of Metlink and in their capacity of the independent contractors they hold the data of their staff training plans.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear Wellington Regional Council,

Attention Margaret Meek

Sure thing. Though I would have expected all the current training plans to be on file at GWRC, and the past ones most likely on file, or non existent due to the age.

I'm a bit confused how it will take 2 months to get the training plans off your half dozen contractors? It would have also been useful to get notice of this extension before the last legal day it is due. Would I be able to get a bit of context around why the extension is needed, and why it took until now to determine an extension was needed?

It really does say a lot about how much oversight GWRC actually has on the bus operators if GWRC don't actually have the training plans on hand. Given some of my other requests and complaints about the lack of oversight and visibility of what the operators do, I would have hoped that GWRC has taken this on board and tried to improve this oversight.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear Wellington Regional Council,

Attention Margaret Meek

Cool, I was just wondering why it took so long to realise that you need consultations for this. It seems a bit fishy that you waited until the last legal day to respond, then asked for an entire extra month to make a response. I still stand by my opinion that I would have thought that the training plans for each operator would be quite on hand, as Metlink state that they have oversight on the network. If they are not readily at hand, how much oversight does Metlink really have...

When you do get around to providing your response, could you please include a brief timeline of how this request was handled, date/time/person involved etc. What consultations were necessary that couldn't be done within the first 20 days, and when were these consultations done. Also when did GWRC first realise that they needed an extension. If the date that GWRC realised they needed an extension was before March 12th, then a bit of reasoning behind the delay of informing myself and the public of the extension required. It would also be useful for reasoning behind the extra 20 days, ie how did you come about 20 days extension rather than 10 or 30?

I also have a very strong feeling that after this extension is over, you will simply reply with "information not held" as you have for my other requests for data held by your independent contractors (which is now with the Ombudsman under s 2(6) of LGOIMA). If this is the response that will be given, then I have no idea why you need an extension for consultations and it seems that this is being unduly delayed.

I understand that I have a few requests with you currently, but I find it rather unsettling that you take until the legal limit before requesting the extension, and when questioned about the context around it you simply repeat the same contextless statement. If some of my other requests are holding this one up, feel free to reach out to me and I can prioritise them.

The purpose of this particular request was to determine how much oversight is actually been done by Metlink, and whether the bus operators training plans align with the policies that Metlink have given to me in the past.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear Nichola Powell,

I'm really not surprised given GWRC's past experience. Couple of points here:

1) Metlink has been a brand of GWRC for years. It did not suddenly start in July 2018. Proof of this is using the Wayback Machine and viewing the GWRC website from 2016 (https://web.archive.org/web/201601280839...), which includes the text "Greater Wellington contracts a range of bus operators to provide services throughout the region."
Can I please get a copy of this training plan for all bus operators under the Metlink branding
for 2017. I understand that there might be different contracts involved, and the specific clause 1.4.5 of Schedule 5 may not relate. However, I would still expect that there was a similar clause in the contracts for that year for the operators of that year. The purpose of my request was to compare between the year before you decided to change the network, and after the network was changed. With the information you released, this is just not possible.
If it is the case that Metlink/GWRC for some reason had operators operating in 2017 with *no training*, then please re-clarify that as information not held. Your current reasoning was that Metlink didn't exist in 2017, which I've shown to be wrong, so your information not held claim is invalid.

2) As you are aware, I am quite passionate about safety on the road, especially around professional drivers. I have been hit by professional drivers before, and have had countless close calls, majority of which the operator involved simply don't care. It was for this reason that I requested these training plans, to give me piece of mind that the operators do infact have sensible training plans in place, and my experiences were simply a few one off occasions from operators that had a momentary lapse of the training they received.

Given you have chosen to largely redact all the training modules under s7(2)(b)(ii) of the LGOIMA, I am unable to satisfy myself that the operators do infact have a sensible training plan in place. Given that there has been many media stories about safety of the bus network in the past year, I would also argue quite strongly that it is in the public interest in this quite strongly outweighs GWRC's choice to redact.

Can you please explain why you think that the public don't have interest in safety concerns with the bus operators, given that safety is important to all public, all road users, and all passengers.

Preferably, I would like you to not redact the following:
- for Tranzit 2018/2019, section 5.3, page 6
- for Tranzit 2018/2019, section 6.1, pages 7-9
- for Tranzit 2018/2019, section 6.4, pages 10-11
- for Tranzit 2018/2019, section 12, page 15-16
- for NZBus 2018/2019, pages 2-3
- for NZBus 2018/2019, page 7

Given that both Mana and Uzabus were not subject to the large redactions under s7(2)(b)(ii), and they have listed their training modules, I really do wonder why Tranzit and NZBus have been redacted. Do Mana and Uzabus somehow not have a commercial position to check? Seems a bit unfair to redact some operators, but not all, for the reason of commercial positions. Given that you have released it for 2 of the operators, I see no issue myself with releasing it for all the operators.

I look forward to a prompt response with the plans for 2017, or a reason why GWRC believes that Metlink did not operate prior to July 2018. I also look forward to a prompt response on why GWRC believes that the public interest in determining whether operators are trained satisfactorily in safety concerns does *not* outweigh GWRC's decision to heavily redact 2 out of 4 operators, and why GWRC believes that 2 out of 4 operators should not be subject to commercial sensitivities, while the other 2 are subject to that.

Yours sincerely,

Hugh Davenport