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Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987

Requests for access to information held by local authorities

17A: Requests involving substantial collation or research

You could also call this:

"When a local authority thinks your information request is too much work to answer"

Illustration for Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987

When you ask a local authority for information, they might refuse your request if it needs a lot of work to answer. Before they refuse, they must think about whether they can charge you for the work under section 13 or give themselves more time to answer under section 14. You might have made more than one request to the local authority, and they can treat these as one request if they are about the same thing and were sent at the same time. The local authority uses section 17(f) to decide if a request is too much work, and they must follow certain rules when making this decision.

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This page was last updated on

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM123006.

Topics:
Government and voting > Local councilsRights and equality > Privacy
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17: Refusal of requests, or

"When a local authority can say no to your request for information"

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17B: Duty to consider consulting person if request likely to be refused under section 17(e) or (f), or

"Local authorities must think about discussing your request with you before saying no to it."

Part 2Requests for access to information held by local authorities

17ARequests involving substantial collation or research

  1. In deciding whether to refuse a request under section 17(f), the local authority must consider whether doing either or both of the following would enable the request to be granted:

  2. fixing a charge under section 13:
    1. extending the time limit under section 14.

      1. For the purposes of refusing a request under section 17(f), the local authority may treat as a single request 2 or more requests from the same person—

      2. that are about the same subject matter or about similar subject matters; and
        1. that are received simultaneously or in short succession.

          Notes
          • Section 17A: inserted, on , by section 3 of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Act 2003 (2003 No 82).