Thousands of Aucklanders have asked for their assessments to be rechecked by QV (file photo).

OPINION: Should we be allowed to know how the state-owned enterprise QV produced an unprecedented "fail" in the statutory revaluation of Auckland properties?

Not according to the Minister of State Owned Enterprises, Winston Peters.

Peters has declined a request from Stuff for information relating to QV's failure, which has left thousands of Auckland ratepayers unsure whether their rates bills are correct.

The information was "commercially sensitive", Peters said. "In making my decision, I have considered the public interest considerations in section 9 (1) of the Official Information Act."

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Official Information Act requests are often declined in full or in part, but the background to the QV case makes this decision questionable.

State-owned QV won the Auckland Council contract to carry out 2017's revaluation of about 550,000 properties, which determines the value on which their rates are based for the next three years.

Property owners can and do challenge those desktop assessments, requiring an individual on-site reappraisal. In Auckland's case, 7893 properties were to be re-checked by QV.

In June, the council said auditing of that work by the Valuer General questioned its correctness, suggesting an urgent legal review of the legitimacy of QV's re-checks.

"The legal review examined QV's work and found they did not follow the law or their contractual requirements by not carrying out on-site inspections required by the rules."

The council pulled the emergency cord, withholding payment for the re-checks in question, and gave QV an extra three months to June 30 to finish the job properly. It failed to so.

About 5000 valuations remain incomplete, with half of those being ratepayers wanting their valuation – and their rates bill – reduced.

It has left the council now contacting that group, to ensure none will have difficulty paying a bill that may be higher than it should be.

QV declined to comment on a bungle which is on a scale unprecedented in local government.

Some in the valuation industry are not surprised that ratings valuations – once done by a government department – have fallen foul of a market-driven competitive tendering model.

The former Valuation New Zealand became a Crown-owned company, Quotable Value, in 1988 during the era of the privatisation or corporatisation of government businesses.

It became a state-owned enterprise in 2005 and has branched out into Australia, operating two companies, as well as facing competition at home.

The Auckland Council contract is the biggest single contract in the valuation industry, and QV appears to have cut corners in not doing the re-check work in line with legislation.

On the same day that Auckland Council went public with details of QV's failure to deliver, the company provided a briefing note to ministers.

An email from Treasury to the relevant government ministers was sent on the same day.

Peters has declined to release either document to Stuff.

It's not known whether they address the appropriateness of competitive tendering to carry out a statutory process upon which local government depends for much of its revenue – or whether QV, in trying to replicate its $2.3 million 2017 profit, has kept the lid too firmly on its costs.

Stuff has objected to the Ombudsman.