The Department of Education has been ordered to launch a renewed search for documents about a Pati applicant and their child after they initially said they could not locate any such records.

According to the Information Commissioner’s Office, in March 2019 a Pati request was sent to the Ministry of Education requesting records related to the applicant and their child.

The applicant asked for a list of agencies, organisations, individuals or other bodies with whom the ministry headquarters had shared personal information about the applicant and their child, along with the purpose and legislative basis for the sharing of the information.

They also requested any records of personal information about the applicant or their child, policy and procedural manuals for principals and teaching staff, the ministry headquarter’s complaint policy and the complaint policy for the schools the child had attended.

The request was transferred to the Department of Education, which said that “no information had been released to agencies, organisations, individuals or any other bodies” about the applicant and their child.

The response added that policies required a form be completed by a parent or guardian in order for records about a student to be released and they could not find any form on file that would have allowed it to release documents regarding the applicant or their child.

The department added that the requested policy and procedural manuals that did exist at the time were already available online but school complaint policies did not exist at the relevant schools.

However, the applicant filed for a review of the decisions by the Information Commissioner.

The ICO found in favour of the department that there were no documents found to release regarding complaint policies at the schools attended by the applicant’s child.

However, the body found that the department had not taken all reasonable steps to locate records about the applicant or their child which may have been passed on.

“On the one hand, the department took a number of appropriate steps during its search,” the ICO decision said.

“Individuals tasked with conducting the search were involved in matters relating to the applicant and their child. As a result, these individuals could reasonably be expected to be familiar with any responsive records.

“The Information Officer also showed sufficient rigour by e-mailing reminders to those who had not responded to their original search request.

“On the other hand, notable inadequacies with the search’s rigour and efficiency arose.”

The decision letter said the department did not follow up with two people who failed to respond to the initial search request, did not contact another by any means other than e-mail, or seek IT support for accessing corrupted files from another individual.

“Adequate rigour and efficiency are required, though, when the circumstances indicate that a record responsive to a Pati request existed or should have existed, because, for example, by law the record must be created or retained or if mentioned in another record.

“In this case, the department did not show that its search for records of any external sharing of personal information of the applicant or their child was conducted with adequate rigour and efficiency.

“This was despite indications from the records identified by the department during this review and the applicant’s concerns that such records were likely to exist.”

The ICO called for the department to conduct a “reasonable search” for additional records and issue a new initial decision on any items found during the search to determine if they should be disclosed.