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April 2021 - Summary of Achievements

Commitment 

Intended Impact 

Achievements this Period 

Progress 

1. Engagement with Parliament (4 Milestones) 

Improve public understanding of how Parliament works and increase public engagement with it. 

Released a Parliament vs Government animation, which explains the different roles and functions of parliament and government.  

The first members’ bill ballot of the 53rd Parliament was drawn by a member of the public and live-streamed. This practice has continued since.  A visiting school group will nominate some students to draw the tokens from the biscuit tin. This has been a great way of including the public in our democracy! 

The presentation of the Address in Reply to the Governor-General was filmed and posted on YouTube so the public could watch this significant event.  

The Speaker’s Outreach programme for 2021 kicked off with a visit to Whanganui. The group visited Gonville School, Tawhero School Whanganui District Council, and the UCOL campus. 

The “Rainbow Voices of Aotearoa New Zealand” short film documentary was shown at Parliament to the Cross Agency Rainbow Network Conference and Awaken Conference participants and continues to have uptake. 

Parliament had a stall at 

  • the Pasifika Festival in Auckland. Resources translated into 9 Pasifika languages. 
  • the Newtown Festival in Wellington. Resources were available at the stall, and an interactive game on the differences between Parliament and Government.  

Visited Tawa College with the Electoral Commission to run a programme on civic participation. The programme at St Mary’s College has continued through 2021, focusing on social action, voting and Parliament.  

Released the first interactive map on the Parliament website. This innovative tool showcases MP’s inter-parliamentary relations activities across the globe. Parliament stall at the Newtown Festival in Wellington, and Pasifika Festival in Auckland. 

Published a Parliament in War Time online exhibition, which showcases some pieces around the Parliament precinct. 

2 Milestones completed 

2 Underway 

2. Youth Parliament (5 Milestones) 

Improve understanding among young people of how Parliament works and highlight topics that matter to young people. 

All milestones are now completed. 

3. School Leavers Toolkit (5 Milestones)  

Young people can access the civic and financial literacy, and workplace skills, they need to succeed, before they leave schooling. 

Communicated new content through Facebook, Instagram and the School Bulletin. Engaging a digital marketing organisation to boost the social media presence of the School Leavers’ Toolkit. 

Received a translated and adapted version of our English medium civics’ resources. Intend to launch this alongside the civics rauemi developed specifically for Māori medium in August 2021.  

Contracted a supplier to develop off the shelf packages of learning for each of the areas of the School Leavers’ Toolkit. These packages of learning will: 

o consist of unit plans or lesson plans 

o will cover all learning required for a learner to demonstrate competency in each of the Toolkit topics; and 

o be able to be tailored and augmented by schools to meet the local curriculum context. 

User acceptance testing with schools will happen in June with a view to launch in September 2021. 

Script of the new School Leavers’ Toolkit video (myth busting pathways after school) has been reviewed and filming is set to commence in June 2021. 

4 milestones completed 

1 milestone under way 

1 milestone (digital badges) will not be completed 

4. Accessibility of Secondary Legislation (3 Milestones) 

Make New Zealand’s secondary legislation readily accessible. 

The Secondary Legislation Act 2021 was enacted in March.  

All milestones are underway. 

5. Public participation in policy development (4 Milestones) 

People experience a timelier and collaborative approach to public participation when policies are developed.  

They consider their concerns, diversity of views, life experience, and time are valued in the policy process. 

DPMC have: 

  • profiled the engagement resources at individual meetings with agencies and public sector networks 
  • used them as a foundation for a draft checklist for good practice community engagement and provided it to agencies working on the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch masjidain on 15 March 2019 for consideration and testing 
  • prepared for further discussion of the resources at the Policy Training Network and Policy Engagement Forum. 
  • continued the write up of the survey results used to help shape the guidance and for publishing on our website 
  • Met with organisers of the IAP2 New Zealand Community and Stakeholder Engagement Symposium to organise speaking at the event  
  • There have been  
  • 1295-page views for the revised Community Engagement webpages OGP webpage, in the January – March 2021 quarter 
  •  964 downloads of the six community engagement guidance resources and the demonstration project report  

3 Milestones completed. 

Final ongoing Milestone underway. 

6. Service Design (3 Milestones) 

(All of Government Service Design Standard Implementation)  

People experience more responsive, open, citizen-centric and user-focused service delivery. 

Service design 

  • there is a tight connection between the DSDS and work to deliver human centred, integrated services. Subject to budget, consideration is being given to extension of SmartStart to include services for children aged 0-6, using the DSDS to guide the service design process. 

Data and insights 

  • work is evolving to review existing data on government services and service delivery and government’s capacity and capability to assess, monitor and report on progress. This enables an evidence-based approach to system interventions highlighted by future use of the standard. 

Equitable access to services 

  • Scoping the work needed to ensure people who need it have non-digital access to government services and entitlements. 

Feedback from COVID 19 tracer app team 

  • MOH created a tailored version of the DSDS that suited their needs while building the app. They provided feedback that the DSDS is  too high level and overly ‘wordy. This is consistent with other feedback received.  
  • MOH noted the UK Government’s NHS Service Standard is much easier to understand and use. They also highlight NZGOAL-SE as an example of a standard that is easy to implement 

Future direction and work 

  • Government agency feedback is that the Standard is too high level. So, an assessment model cannot be created, as the standard needs further work in order to be usable.  
  • The principles and aim of the DSDS are recognised as valuable. Agencies aware of the DSDS’s objectives are supportive of it. They see it as a lever for the building and running of government information and services that people can easily find, understand and use, that are both trusted and worthy of people’s trust. 
  • Decisions about the future of the DSDS will be made in June and the final report on this commitment will provide a roadmap which will reflect that outcome. 

1 milestone competed 

2 milestones underway 

1 milestone no longer applicable  

7. Official Information (3 Milestones) 

Improve the availability of official information by:  

• providing advice to the Government on whether to initiate a formal review of official information legislation  

• progressively increasing the proactive release of official information. 

Milestone 1: 

  • In 2019, the Ministry of Justice undertook targeted engagement on the Official Information Act 1982 considering whether to progress a review of the Act. The Ministry’s advice and a summary of the consultation was provided to the Minister of Justice. 
  • In March 2021, the advice and consultation summary document were published on the Ministry of Justice website at: https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/Proactive-release-OIA-review.pdf   
  • The Minister of Justice will consider the potential for a review of the OIA later in this parliamentary term.  

Milestone 2: 

  • Statistics covering the period July to December 2020, were released in March 2021. Agencies: 
  • responded to 97.2% of requests on time.  
  • completed 25,332 requests during the period, a 27% increase in volume on the previous six months.  
  • published 1,876 OIA responses a 52% increase on the previous period 
  • The number of OIA responses published is 65% up on the first six-month period of the National Action Plan period. 

Milestone 3: 

  • The Cabinet paper establishing the policy, and associated advice, and a 30-working day calculator have been published on the Commission’s website.  
  • The Cabinet Office Circular is published on the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet website. 
  • A dataset showing the publishing locations of agencies’ Cabinet papers is now available on the Commission’s proactive release webpage and www.data.govt.nz. This Milestone has been completed. 

2 milestones completed 

1 ongoing milestone under way 

 

 

8. Review of Government use of Algorithms (3 Milestones) 

Ensure New Zealanders are informed and have confidence in how the government uses algorithms – automatic decision-making processes used by computer programmes – to identify patterns in data. 

Continued working with agencies on implementing the Algorithm Charter and sharing learnings with international networks on an ongoing basis.  

A review of the Algorithm Charter for Aotearoa New Zealand will be conducted after July 2021. 

2 milestones completed  

1 milestone underway 

 

9. Visibility of Government Data Stewardship Practices (4 Milestones) 

New Zealanders: 

understand how government is managing, using, and protecting their data and be able to hold government to account. 

have confidence and trust in the management and use of data that government holds on their behalf. 

There is a diversity in data stewardship awareness, practices, and maturity across government so it will take longer than anticipated to achieve consistent and transparent data stewardship practices.  

 

A report on the successes and barriers to data access and use across government during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic is being prepared. This report recommendations focus on improving data findability and access, identifying the most important data, supporting collaboration, clarifying governance roles, fostering expertise-based networks, and helping data users navigate privacy, security, and ethical considerations.   

1 milestone completed 

1 milestone under way 

2 milestones delayed  

10. Monitoring the effectiveness of public body Information Management practices (3 Milestones) 

Make the management of government information more visible and transparent by developing and implementing a monitoring framework. The framework will support public reporting on the effectiveness of information management.  

Completed  

11. Authoritative Dataset of government organisations as open data (8 Milestones) 

People can access authoritative, open data about government agencies and their roles, learn more about how government is structured, what agencies do, and be able to reuse the open data in new and innovative ways.   

Data Model of Machinery of Government 

  • Planning for workshops to identify and map possible extensions to the data model (particularly Vote and appropriations data). 
  • Progressed work with agencies on connections between the government ontology (how agencies are grouped), the Govt A-Z feature and the PSC MoG dataset. 
  • Specific use cases are being considered to test the data model. This will support the implementation requirements for applying the dataset in a number of ways and to prioritise the extension of dataset elements. 

Open standards 

  •  A paper detailing options for an open standard for the data set(s) will be prepared for decision in June.    
  • Options for an All of Government ontology are being developed. This is looks at using modern technology to address the need for common vocabularies and concept definitions across government. Ontologies can enable machine-readable data and information as well as use of multiple languages and automation of our business processes. 
  • The UK government central govt ontology is being referenced concerning how it is used and its applicability for NZ. https://lov.linkeddata.es/dataset/lov/vocabs/cgov   

2 milestones completed 

6 milestones underway 

 

12. Open Procurement (3 Milestones) 

People can easily find, and access published GETS information for contracts awarded by government agencies that are subject to the Government Rules of Sourcing. This will increase the level of trust the public has in procurement, as it will be possible to analyse what contracts government agencies are awarding, what the expected spend is and which businesses have been awarded contracts. 

Completed