The Christchurch City Council has refused to release the cost of a new touch wall, similar to this one, being installed in the new central city library.

The Christchurch City Council has refused to reveal the cost of installing a touch wall in its new central library, prompting a slap on the wrist from the Ombudsman.

For the second time in a week, the council's unwillingness to publicly release information has been called into question.

On Wednesday, Mayor Lianne Dalziel and senior council staffers fronted on a multimillion-dollar Town Hall budget blowout only after the details were leaked to Stuff.

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel hopes a forthcoming review will shed light on exactly what led to the city losing its treasured secure status for its drinking water.

A public-excluded council meeting agenda showed it was proposed to keep the blowout private until December 2019.

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Now, Ombudsman Leo Donnelly has opined the council should release the cost of the touch wall, after it declined the Taxpayers' Union's request for the information. The 7-metre-wide, touch-sensitive wall will provide a digital representation of Christchurch and the city's history.

DAVID WALKER/STUFF The council earlier tried to cover up a budget blowout on the Christchurch Town Hall restoration.

Stuff on Friday also requested details about the cost of the touch wall after learning of Donnelly's decision.

"Pending consideration of the Ombudsman's opinion and recommendation ... the council is not releasing this information at this time," a spokeswoman said.

"The Ombudsman notified the council on May 31 that it is his opinion and recommendation that the council should release the cost of the digital and touch walls at Tūranga, to the requester of this information.

"As set out in provisions in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA), the council must now consider the steps it will take to give effect to the Ombudsman's recommendation."

Taxpayers' Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke called the council's initial decision to "thwart" the information law and not release the cost of the screen "appalling".

"Three years ago, MBIE (the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment) were rightfully slammed for spending $140,000 on a screen, but at least they didn't try to break the law and keep it secret," he said.

Former Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce faced a grilling back in 2015 over costs to fit out MBIE's Wellington offices. The costs included a 3.49-metre curved screen in its reception, costing more than $140,000.

Despite the council's unwillingness to release the information to Stuff on Friday, Donnelly said Gibson Group, the supplier of the screen, had pointed out the library feature cost less than 1.3 per cent of the total cost of the new library.

The budget for the library was just under $100 million, about $10m more than the 2013 forecast of $89.36m, however the final figure included work such as land remediation.

On Friday afternoon, Stuff requested an interview with Dalziel to ask about spending on the touch wall and council decisions to withhold information.

She was not available, so a council spokeswoman responded instead, saying: "The council as an organisation hasn't had the opportunity yet to discuss the Ombudsman's recommendation with the commercial provider of the wall. We would need to do this first prior to responding to the recommendation, and thereby considering the release of this information.

"We have 20 working days, under the LGOIMA, to observe the Ombudsman's recommendation and we are following this process, but we will respond as soon as we possibly can."

A spokesman for the Ombudsman said: "We would expect an agency to consider the ... opinion and recommendations promptly.

"However, under section 32 of LGOIMA, a local authority is not obliged to comply with the recommendation immediately and has up to a maximum of 21 working days after the date of the recommendation to consider whether to do so or not."

The council spokeswoman said Dalziel was not available because she was attending workshops with city councillors and, therefore, had not been briefed by council staff.

"You should note that this [touch wall] was not a decision that was taken by councillors, although they were briefed about it last year before the contract was confirmed," she said.

"The decision itself was within the delegation of the project team and it is all within the budget for the library which remains on budget.

"[The mayor] hasn't been briefed on the Gibson wall, as she was not at the earlier briefing with councillors, nor has she been briefed on the Ombudsman's recommendations, which arrived [on Thursday]."