Official Information Request - 7 January 2020

Sent: Friday, 14 February 2020 2:45 pm

Subject: LGOIMA request - i-Park system

I refer to your email of 7 January 2020 under LGOIMA for information regarding the i-Park system.

I note you had a phone conversation with Chris Craig, Team Leader Community Compliance, in mid January where the complexity of collating the information for questions 1, 2 and 3 (which would incur a cost) was discussed. You were offered the opportunity to refine your request to reduce or eliminate the cost, however you subsequently advised that you wished to continue with the request as per your email.

As notified to you, questions 1, 2 and 3 will take a considerable amount of time to locate, collate and redact personal/identifying information. This has been estimated at 16 hours of staff time. Council is entitled to charge for time in excess of one hour and, as per the Ministry of Justice charging guidelines, our normal practice is to charge $38 per half hour or part thereof. Therefore to complete this part of your request would incur a cost of $1,216 including GST. If you wish to proceed on this basis, please let me know and I will arrange an invoice for you which will need to be paid before the work is commenced.

With regards questions 4-9, these are responded to as follows:

4. Communications between the council and rental car companies regarding i-Park fines since its introduction.

Council has received a number of transfer of liability requests from rental car companies via email. RLC has a standard response (below) that advises rental car companies to submit the transfer of liability via i-Park's website. i-Park have received 56 of these transfer of liability requests.

Kia ora,

Thank you for your Transfer of Liability in regards to a parking infringement.

This infringement has been issued under the i-Park system in order to transfer the liability you will need to complete the online dispute form on the i-Park Rotorua website.

If you have any further queries, please feel free to call us on (07) 348 4199 or info@rotorualc.nz (Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm) and one of our friendly customer advisors will be able to assist you.

Kind Regards,

5. The number of parking fine cases that have been referred to the District Court.

4,704 parking fine cases have been referred to the district court from 1 May 2019 (first ticket issued by i-Park) until 31 December 2019

6. The number of those District Court cases that the Council won (successful).

540

7. The number of those District Court cases that have been returned to council (non-successful).

6

8. The total cost of the referral all cases (separated by successful and non-successful) to the District Court since iPark's introduction.

Prosecution costs for cases upheld by the court - $16,200. This is recovered.

Prosecution costs for cases overturned by the court - $180.

9. The number of parking fine appeals that were successful (that is, found in favour of the client/customer) and the number of parking fine appeals that were not successful (that were not approved).

1,748 appeals have been upheld (successful)

947 appeals have stood (unsuccessful)

Question 10 will be covered under question 2 as above.

You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision. Complaints can be sent by email to info@ombudsman.parliament.nz, by fax to (04) 471 2254, or by post to The Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143.

Publication of responses to LGOIMA requests

Please note: Our LGOIMA responses may be published on the Rotorua Lakes Council website after they have been responded to, with requesters' personal details withheld. If you have any concerns about this please contact the Council on info@rotorualc.nz .

Regards

Follow-up Response

Sent: Friday, 20 March 2020 5:31 pm

Subject: TRIM: LGOIMA request - i-Park system

I refer to your follow-up email of 24 February 2020 and respond as follows:

1. Any and all complaints about the i-Park system.a. January 2019b. June 2019c. December 2019
2. Internal council communications pertaining to any and all of these complaints.a. January 2019b. June 2019c. December 2019
3. Internal communications regarding customer centre interactions with the public regarding the i-Park systema. January 2019b. June 2019c. December 2019

Questions 1 and 3 - Complaints about the i-Park system through the Customer Centre are captured in Council's Request For Service system. Attached is a report from this system detailing this information for the periods requested.

Question 2 - Attached are internal council communications relating to customer complaints over this period.

Personal information of complainants and Council's contractors (i-Park) have been redacted as per section 7(2)(a) 'protect the privacy of natural persons'.

Regarding question 4 - the only communication with rental car companies has been the automatic email message as previously provided

The number quoted by the Infrastructure Manager and the numbers provided regarding parking fine appeals were calculated at different stages of the process resulting in a difference.

You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision. Complaints can be sent by email to info@ombudsman.parliament.nz, by fax to (04) 471 2254, or by post to The Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143.

Publication of responses to LGOIMA requests

Please note: Our LGOIMA responses may be published on the Rotorua Lakes Council website after they have been responded to, with requesters' personal details withheld. If you have any concerns about this please contact the Council on info@rotorualc.nz .

Regards