Another Local Aotearoa transparency win as KiwiRail reveals $8m consultant bill
Fresh from finally getting the Ombudsman to chase up councils who were refusing to open up their secret workshops and briefings to the public, I’ve just notched up another win for transparency with our top public watchdog.
Regular readers will remember earlier this year when Local Aotearoa took a break from its usual programming about local government to highlight an egregious ruling from the Ombudsman that was going to allow KiwiRail to keep how much it spent getting advice from a multi-national consulting firm.
Alongside that blog, I wrote to the Ombudsman pointing out the inconsistencies of their initial ruling with the accepted practices of numerous agencies in relation to the regular releasing under the Official Information Act (OIA) of itemised spends on consultancy services. All of this took me five minutes to find on Google. The email I sent the Ombudsman formed the basis for the blog post..
Following my email, the respondent from the Ombudsman indicated they would raise the issue with their manager and “come back” to me as soon as possible. Sure enough, the Ombudsman revisited their thinking and has now switched tracks with KiwiRail being forced to release how much they spent: a whopping $8 million.
I have nothing against consultants, especially seeing as I work part time as one alongside being a student. When an entity (public or private) lacks internal capacity or expertise in an area it’s entirely reasonable for them to engage outside resources. There’s a bigger question about the extent to which this happens versus capabilities they should be available in house, but that’s for another day.
When they do engage external resources, then transparency around that expenditure of public funds is a good thing for ensuring accountability of delivery. KiwiRail trying to hide their spend with McKinsey - and the Ombudsman’s initial attempt to back them up - flew in the face of years of accepted practice in interpreting the OIA.
This latest victory comes on the back of another win for Local Aotearoa. That was when, despite initially telling me he couldn’t do anything about councils still holding their workshops and briefings in secret, the now former Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier recently chased up those very same councils - just as I called on him to do last November.
Even though the Ombudsman is one of our top public watchdogs, it’s important to remember that - just like the rest of us - they’re not infallible. It’s good to see that they’ve gone away and reflected on their initial positions in relation to issues I’ve raised with them and changed tack.
Somewhat amusingly, in both of these cases (council workshops and KiwiRail) where the Ombudsman has reversed course they haven’t bothered to update me about what was happening even though I’ve been involved in raising both issues with them. Though I’m sure that’s just an oversight due to demanding workloads on their part and not anything untoward.