Dear New Zealand Police,

In the last few months, when I have been at the Wellington Central Station submitting 1U Driver Complaint Report forms, the desk staff have insisted that I can "submit these online" and seem hesitant to accept the 1U forms. After questioning, they point me to the community roadwatch form, and say "it goes to the same place". I've been told by numerous sources, including NZ Police that the roadwatch form simply gets a letter sent to the registered owner of the vehicle, and no contact with the driver, and no investigation happens. Whereas the 1U form requires a police investigation, and the driver to be spoken to and warned/fined/convicted. These two approaches appear to have drastically different outcomes.

I would like to request any policy on handling the 1U forms for either NZ Police in general, or for Wellington Central Station in specific, or both depending on whether the policy is a national level or not.

I would like to also request the following for the year 2018:
1) The number of roadwatch submissions for the Wellington region and
a) the number of those submissions that resulted in a letter being sent to the registered owner
b) the number of those submissions that resulted in the actual driver of the vehicle being spoken to by NZ Police
c) the number of those submissions that resulted in the actual driver getting an official warning/infringement/conviction or some other negative outcome for the driver.
2) The number of 1U traffic complaints reported for the Wellington region and
a) same as above
b) same as above
c) same as above

If the two numbers differ, I would like to request why the staff on the desk at Wellington Central Station are stating that they are equivalent, and why they are insisting that people use the roadwatch over the 1U forms. I would also like to know what training is taking place so that the desk staff are adequately informed on the differences and stop telling members of the public that they are the same.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear New Zealand Police,

Oh I would also like to add a request for all the differences between the Community Roadwatch and the 1U traffic form in terms of Police processing, investigation, and possible outcomes.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear WRIGHT-MCCARTHY, Hannah,

Just to clarify. The second email adding more to the request was sent on 14th March as well. The exact time (as per the FYI system) was 2019-03-14 14:56:21 +1300. Please ensure that you treat the request from the 14th, not the 15th. It was actually only 4 minutes after the first email, not a day, and nowhere close to midnight.

Yours sincerely,

Hugh Davenport

Dear WRIGHT-MCCARTHY, Hannah,

No worries, thanks for that quick response confirming :)

Yours sincerely,

Hugh Davenport

Dear WRIGHT-MCCARTHY, Hannah,

Given this is now overdue, and the Police rarely ever respond to follow ups, I have reported this to the Ombudsman.

Yours sincerely,

Hugh Davenport

Dear WRIGHT-MCCARTHY, Hannah,

Thanks for your reply. I remind the Police that they are required to give notice of any extension before 20 working days. That passed, and the response I got after just said that my requests (labelled "complaints" in the Police system for some reason) were being actioned.

The Police could still send through a notification of extension, so I have some idea on when I might get a response.

This is required under Law.

Yours sincerely,

Hugh Davenport

Dear WRIGHT-MCCARTHY, Hannah,

Thanks for that. I'm a bit surprised that the Police appear to have no data showing how many formal complaints are actually actioned... I would have thought that be a core part of policing, so that the Police know whether they are properly responding to complaints or not. From this, I can gather that you correctly respond to formal complaints somewhere between 0% and 100% of the time, which isn't the most helpful.

If you decide that infact the Police do store this information, that would be good if you can release it as originally requested. If you are certain that that information doesn't exist, we'll leave this request as finished.

Yours sincerely,

Hugh Davenport

Dear WRIGHT-MCCARTHY, Hannah,

I'm also a bit confused that you mention that "In every instance reported, a record is maintained", yet that record somehow has no information at all about the outcome of that instance. For example, to detect repeat offenders, I would imagine that "the number of those submissions that resulted in the actual driver of the vehicle being spoken to by NZ Police" would be information stored. If the Police do not know whether the driver was spoken to by the Police, then how can they tell whether the driver is a repeat offender or not?

Yours sincerely,

Hugh Davenport

Dear New Zealand Police,

Thanks for that. Given you've now admitted that you do infact have records for when infringement notices or formal warnings have been sent. I would like to get my response as legally required for points 1(a), 1(c), 2(a), and 2(c) which directly ask for whether letters have been sent, and whether warnings/infringements/convictions were made. You have already refused this under s18(g) as it doesn't exist, but in your latest response you clearly state that it does exist "Police do record when charges are laid and infringement notices or formal warnings are issued."

Can you please ensure that in future, the Police follow the OIA legal requirements appropriately, and release information when it is requested instead of pretending that it doesn't exist (illegally). I remind the Police yet again that they are not above the law. I have informed the Ombudsman about this.

Given that my request was made March 14th 2019, and I have made no clarifications, and the response was incorrect purely due to the Police's inability to handle OIA requests legally, I would hope for a response ASAP, and I note that my request is now overdue by 13 working days (I think I've taken the holidays into account appropriately). ASAP to me would be a response by COB today.

I also hope that the Police look into why this OIA request was mishandled and the incorrect response was sent. Perhaps looking into your procedures on how you handle OIA's, the QA process, etc, in order to make sure that any future requests are made with the correct response.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear WRIGHT-MCCARTHY, Hannah,

Can I please get an update on this? You refused this under s18(g) as it doesn't exist, then you go on to say that a record is kept. It can't be both, if it exists, it is covered by the OIA and must be released. If it doesn't exist, then there should be no records kept.

I also note my comment about Police's handling of OIA requests. A bit of quality assurance could go a long way.

Yours sincerely,

Hugh Davenport

Dear New Zealand Police,

Can I please get an update on this?

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport

Dear New Zealand Police,

Can I please get an update on this.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Davenport