Council Charges - Requests Under LGOIMA 1987

Policies

1.0    Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to set out the Council’s charging policy for providing information under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA).

2.0    Background

Any person may request a local authority to make available “any specified official information”. A Council must provide this information unless certain circumstances exist. The Council is able to charge for providing the information providing that the charge is reasonable taking into account the cost of the labour and materials in making the information available. The labour costs can include the costs of finding and collating the information, as well as reproducing it.

Land Information Memorandum’s are prepared under LGOIMA.

3.0    Key Definitions

Official Information

  • (a) means any information held by a local authority; but
  • (b) does not include—
    • (i) information contained in library or museum material made or acquired and preserved solely for reference or exhibition purposes; or
    • (ii) information which is held by a local authority solely as an agent or for the sole purpose of safe custody and which is so held on behalf of a person other than a local authority; or
    • (iii) information contained in any correspondence or communication that has taken place between the office of the Ombudsmen and any local authority and that relates to an investigation conducted by an Ombudsman under this Act or under the Ombudsmen Act 1975, other than information that came into existence before the commencement of that investigation; and
  • (c) does not include information contained in any correspondence or communication that has taken place between the office of the Privacy Commissioner and any local authority and that relates to any investigation conducted by the Privacy Commissioner under the Privacy Act 1993, other than information that came into existence before the commencement of that investigation

Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987

4.0    Policy

Charging for Official Information

The charges set out in this policy represent what the Timaru District Council regards as reasonable charges for the purpose of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.

(a) Where charges are prescribed by Statute, those charges will be applied.

(b) Costs for Land Information Memorandum will be determined annually and recorded in the Council’s “Fees and Charges”.

(c) Costs for hard copies of Council or Standing Committee Agendas will be determined annually and recorded in the Council’s “Fees and Charges”.

(d) Other information:

  • 1.1  The amount of charge will be determined by:
    • (a) The aggregate amount of staff time exceeding one hour spent in actioning the request. This will include search and retrieval of information, reviewing the information, the provision of copies and the supervision of access.
    • (b) The number of pages of A4 size photocopy to be provided exceeding 20. Non-standard sized photocopy paper such as that used for reproducing maps and plans will be charged on an actual and reasonable basis.
    • (c) For any other cost the amount actually incurred in responding to the request.
  • 1.2 Where repeated requests from the same source are made in respect of a common subject over intervals of up to eight weeks, requests after the first will be aggregated for charging purposes.
  • 1.3 Time spent by staff searching for relevant material, abstracting and collating, copying, transcribing and supervising access where the total time involved is in excess of one hour should be charged out as follows:
    • $36.00 plus GST per half hour or part thereof

The rate of charge applies irrespective of Council officer who deals with the request.

Adopted Policy and Development Committee 28 July 2015

Last updated: 12 Sep 2022