Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier in 2024. Photo: RNZ / Screenshot
Health New Zealand has "created a process for itself that was inherently contrary to law", says the Ombudsman, after he investigated how RNZ was blocked for months from getting information about Dunedin Hospital.
RNZ sought details of the beleaguered, multi-billion-dollar build on 1 May last year, and did not get a response until 28 November.
In the intervening period, the government had received three reports warning of blowouts, which it talked about in September, though it released only one of them.
It ordered a reset, added $300m to the pot, and stated a further blowout to up to $3 billion was ahead, triggering a mass protest campaign in Otago amid fears the hospital would be shrunk in size.
RNZ's efforts to get hold of information that lay behind this were stymied.
Protesters in Dunedin in September last year. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
Now Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has reprimanded Health NZ (HNZ), called the fines for breaches of the Official Information Act (OIA) "laughable" and suggested agency chief executives be held personally responsible for breaches.
His findings against Health NZ Te Whatu Ora came out on Thursday, the day he spoke up ahead of stepping down, having been in the role since 2015.
Boshier found HNZ had created its own process "contrary to law", through its practice of telling requesters it had made a decision - without saying what the decision was - at a point when an OIA was already overdue.
The law gives agencies 20 working days to respond unless they can justifiably claim one of several legislated-for reasons.
A common reason given is that an agency needs to consult more; another, that the information sought will be released soon anyway. But in practice, this can actually take place months later, when an issue is no longer in the public mind.
RNZ has also complained about that practice to the Ombudsman.
"The default position should be, 'Release it unless there's a good reason why not'," Boshier told Checkpoint on Friday.
RNZ's was one of 10 similar complaints between April 2023 and January 2024. In all 10 cases, HNZ extended the original timeframe to respond to the request for "the purpose of consultation".
"It's just that when you get Health New Zealand, that breaches the law when it comes to the release of information, and Corrections that doesn't comply with international standards, that's what causes me enormous frustration," Boshier told Checkpoint.
The New Zealand Herald titled an editorial on Friday, "Health NZ treats transparency as a buzzword on a whiteboard".
Boshier in his swansong report on Thursday took a deeper dive into delays at seven agencies, including HNZ.
"I didn't find evidence of deliberate attempts to slow things down but I did see, in all but one of the seven agencies, practices that were contributing to delays," he wrote.
"The majority had strong leadership and were committed to sound OIA handling, but there were still some that didn't have a high-level strategy for meeting their OIA obligations. This should be a priority.
"Health New Zealand is of particular concern. I regret to say that I have found on a number of occasions that it is not always following the letter and spirit of the law."
More of the same
RNZ's Dunedin Hospital OIA request got a response 149 working days after it was lodged on 1 May.
By late November, the public protest at the government reset, including calls for more information to be released, had been underway for weeks.
In the end, the response ran to only about 40 pages - not many by OIA standards - and most of those were a risk matrix that was largely unreadable yet was sent out by HNZ anyway.
It had, by then, apologised twice to RNZ, saying each time it was treating the 1 May request with urgency.
In Boshier's new four-page finding, HNZ told him it had apologised over all 10 complaints.
"HNZ acknowledged that it had fallen short of its responsibilities under the OIA and it had taken an unacceptably long time to respond fully to requests," he said.
"Where this happened, HNZ apologised to the requester.
"HNZ advised the Ombudsman that work was underway to review its current OIA practices."
He noted it was doing more staff training and regular quality assurance tests on its large OIA caseload.
The finding released on Thursday matched one released in June 2024, about HNZ delays to questions about junior doctors' jobs.
"The central health agency is promising changes to how it handles OIA requests after it dealt with one from RNZ unlawfully," RNZ reported in June.
The delay in that case was even longer - about a year.
As in the newer case, the information when it came out raised questions about how effectively HNZ had handled major problems - whether Dunedin's blowouts, or escalating junior doctor salary costs.
This week, RNZ received a response to its latest request for a detailed update about progress on Dunedin Hospital under the government's reset, designed with the help of at least four consultancy firms.
On Friday, the city's mayor expressed frustration at what he calls slow progress despite $449m being spent of the $1.88b budget.
In the response on Tuesday, Health New Zealand said: "This email is to let you know that Health NZ needs more time to make a decision on your request.
"The Act requires that we advise you of our decision on your request no later than 20 working days after the day we received your request. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to meet that time limit, and we are therefore writing to notify you of an extension of the time to make our decision, to 8 April 2025."
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