Happy New Year! In this update, we’re covering New Zealand’s Fourth National Action Plan and the inaugural State of the Public Service briefing.
Fourth National Action Plan
Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the development of New Zealand’s Fourth National Action Plan, under the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The Plan was published in December 2022 and commenced in January 2023.
To develop the Plan, New Zealand’s OGP Multi-stakeholder Forum (MSF) worked with the public, government agencies and civil society. The development work included ideas generation, commitment development, commitment refinement, and Cabinet decision-making processes.
The Cabinet-approved Plan, including PDF and HTML versions, is published on the Fourth National Action Plan web page. A summary of the stakeholder feedback received on the draft Plan is also available here.
The plan contains eight commitments:
- Adopt a community engagement tool
- Research deliberative processes for community engagement
- Establish an inclusive, multi-channel approach to the delivery of government information and services
- Design and implement a National Counter Fraud and Corruption Strategy
- Increase transparency of beneficial ownership of companies and limited partnerships
- Improve government procurement transparency
- Strengthen scrutiny of Official Information Act exemption clauses in legislation
- Improve transparency and accountability of algorithm use across government.
Citizen Workshops – Deliberative Processes
Commitment 2 of the Fourth National Action Plan is about researching deliberative processes being used for community engagement.
Reflecting deliberative processes in action, the Ministry of Transport is working with Auckland University’s Koi Tū The Centre for Informed Futures team to address the question: “How should we fund the transport system in the future?” The next stage includes a set of deliberative workshops, in which a group of citizens is invited to join in the conversation and learn more about the issues.
State of the Public Service briefing
In December 2022, the Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes released the first Te Kahu Tuatini | State of the Public Service briefing, which provides an overview of the Public Service and how it is performing. The briefing highlights progress, as well as areas of challenge, across key dimensions of the Public Service – including trust, integrity, open government and Māori-Crown relationship building.
This three-yearly briefing plays an important role in providing for strong stewardship of the Public Service and sits alongside the Long-term Insights Briefings, which were also introduced under the Public Service Act 2020. There is a close alignment between the purpose of these documents and work in the OGP space. The briefings, for instance, are publicly released, referred to Select Committee for consideration, and provide input into government thinking over the medium-to-longer term that goes beyond future OGPNZ Action Plans.
If you would like to share the Fourth National Action Plan or Te Kahu Tuatini briefing on social media, you can find posts on OGPNZ Twitter and Te Kawa Mataaho | Public Service Commission Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn platforms.
International OGP Strategy
The international body of OGP has published a draft OGP 2023-2028 strategy that is available for public feedback until February 15, 2023. To have your say, visit Creating OGP’s Future Together: Draft Strategy.
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