Wellington Water welcomes Ombudsman’s findings into its Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act Practices

Findings published today into Wellington’s compliance with the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) have highlighted areas where we can improve our practices.

“We welcome the Ombudsman’s findings, which notes Wellington Water’s commitment to being open and transparent however increased rigour in our processes, systems, and internal communications around the handling of requests for official information is needed to ensure consistent compliance with the Act,” says Wellington Water’s Acting CE Julie Alexander.

The Ombudsman report recommended 27 action points on how Wellington Water can improve its LGOIMA processes, focused on the following areas: 

• Stronger leadership and culture around the importance of the LGOIMA as well as ongoing staff training on the Act and what it means.
• Consider the LGOIMA team structure, staffing and capability where further resilience can be built into our LGOIMA handling processes to manage times of peak workload or when staff are away, and provide staff training on information management systems and record keeping. 
• Develop and improve key policies, procedures and resources to bolster record keeping practices and work with our shareholding councils to agree on how further information and advice that we provide them can be proactively released.
• Improving current practices on a range of areas related to communication of reasons to withhold information under the Act, process of transferring of media requests internally to the LGOIMA team, increasing visibility at senior leadership level of the commissioning of requests, and better record keeping of LGOIMA decision making.
• Establish and report on LGOIMA performance targets to senior leaders to help identify improvements and provide assurance, and make this publicly available to demonstrate openness and accountability.

“We have accepted all recommendations – none of which are unexpected as we have known for a while now that improvements to our LGOIMA practices are needed,” says Julie.

“The Ombudsman’s findings underscore the need for us to have essential technology and information management systems, which we currently lack, and this is a need that we have been open with the public and our councils on for some time now.

“That’s why it is promising to see that our shareholding councils have provided funding for the first stages of procurement for core technology systems that will support better information management as well as the range of essential work and services we provide.

“In addition to getting better technology systems, we are working hard to implement the range of improvements in response to the Ombudsman’s findings. Since the completion of its investigation in June 2025, we have taken steps to addressing over half of the 27 recommendations, which demonstrates our commitment to doing better in this area.”

The Ombudsman’s investigation on Wellington Water’s practices began in September 2024 and ran to June 2025. Wellington Water was selected at random and one out of five other agencies included as part of the Chief Ombudsman’s regular programme of investigations into local authorities and their practices and compliance with the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987. 

The Ombudsman’s full report can be found on Wellington Water’s website, along with details on our actions to implement the Ombudsman’s recommendations. Wellington Water will be reporting back to the Ombudsman on our progress on a regular basis with the first report due on 30 September 2025.