Ombudsman slow to act on suppressed QLDC trust survey

Analysis.

Crux readers will be aware that the QLDC’s trust rating fell to 4% in our own survey last year. The Crux survey replaced QLDC’s new general “Quality of Life” community survey that avoided all questions around council performance after a record breaking, national-low result of 15% in 2023.

In what is rapidly appearing to be an empty PR stunt the council is refusing to release the 2025 survey results, which closed at the end of March. The 2025 trust survey was supposed to be a special focussed survey with CEO Mike Theelen asking the community to tell the council “how we really feel.”

It was promised as being published in April, then in mid May. Those dates have come and gone.

Crux lodged an official information request in April that asked for the raw survey data and any correspondence with the council’s private survey company.

That request was due on May 26th. The QLDC wrote to Crux at 4.59 pm on that day asking for a extension. We have not agreed to such an extension.

The grounds for refusing to release the survey?

“It will be published in the future.”

You cannot make this stuff up, except the Official Information Act for councils (LGOIMA) is a real thing and is supposed to the legally enforceable.

QLDC PR people are saying that a council workshop on June 17 will review the survey and it can’t be released until councillors have been briefed on it.

Given past “factual failures” there’s no reason to believe that this will happen.

Officials at the Office of Ombudsman in Wellington earlier this week promised swift action on our complaint and agreed that there was a risk that the community may feel the results are being altered or manipulated in some way.

But they’ve dropped the ball as well - no action at all so far.

All we can do is keep shining a light on this issue until we see the results - and the raw, unedited data and any communication between the council and the survey company.