Council staff and their attitudes towards geodata requests
April 27th, 2008. Posted in GeodataMany interesting things to ponder in this posting to a GIS discussion list used by NZ council employees and other GIS people. The REDACTED names are all current or former council people. The discussion was prompted by a request to the Tauranga City Council under the LGOIMA for some (all?) of it’s aerial photography; the LGOIMA being the local government equivalent to the Official Information Act. I’ll post my thoughts on the matter a bit later today when we’ve crushed the IE6 problems with the next round of updates to Koordinates.
Hi All,
Thanks to those who replied to my query obtaining GIS data under LGOIMA. It seems that each council have different approaches to how they handle data requests and I received lots of opinions. Even here at TCC we have differing opinions on this topic. Some councils distinguish between community groups eg. neighbour support, police, fire verse commercial companies. Some councils provide free assistance to the community groups.
Generally the requests are assessed on an a case by case basis. If you want to charge for data, this will depend on your ownership or your licensing agreement you have regarding that data. There is the provision for charging of the compiling and supply of the data. It would pay to get a legal opinion if you want to challenge a request.
Here are some replies that I received (some abbreviated).
[REDACTED] wrote - There was something in the regulations about Bulk Supply i.e the request has to be reasonable and contained to a specific purpose. So if somebody asked for the imagery along a road then clip it to make it useless for any other purpose. There is also the provision to charge for the compilation and supply of the data.
[REDACTED] wrote - Any request of you is a LGOIMA request. The request does not have to specify the act. The same applies to the OIA for central government. The only reasons for turning or watering down are the reasons in your act.
[REDACTED] wrote - There is a difference between core and no core data (I forgot the correct term), which means data like drainage and district plan which council needs to maintain is Core Data and Aerial imagery, which council need not maintain, is Non Core data. Core data council need to make available at cost, ie. you can charge for time it takes to make it available and/or and CD and postage, but non core datasets can be handled just as any other time, ie. you can charge the full price for LIDAR and imagery.
[REDACTED] wrote - YOU CAN DECLINE (on valid grounds). In all cases you need to deal with the merit of the case. Generally if it is a ratepayer or someone contracted to a ratepayer, who is planning a submission to council or dealing with consent issues, I’d say you should supply. If it is clearly a commercial venture trying to gain a marketable dataset then I’d be very happy to decline. If you are unsure of your obligations, we have generally found the ombudsman’s office to be helpful if you email them or call them with the details of the request.
[REDACTED] wrote - Auckland City Council were challenged a couple of years ago under LGOIMA about their rights to sell aerial photography. My understanding is that the Ombudsman became involved and gave a decision on this to basically say that it was fine provided that they treated everyone equally and clearly advertised pricing.
