Open Government Partnership New Zealand National Action Plan 2018-2020
Progress report for: June 2018 – January 2019
Commitment 11 progress report: June 2018 to January 2019
Commitment 11: Release and maintain an authoritative dataset of government organisations as open data for greater transparency
Lead agency: Department of Internal Affairs
Objective: To release and maintain an authoritative dataset of government organisations as open, machine-readable data to enhance the transparency of government structures to the public.
There will be cross-agency agreement to maintain this dataset, providing assurance that the data being used is the authoritative source. This dataset becomes a foundation for both digital services and information about government.
Ambition: New Zealanders and others will have access to 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.
OGP values: Transparency, Accountability and Technology and Innovation
Milestones
Milestone 1
Identify owners contributors and maintainers for the data held in the proposed dataset.
Start/End dates: October 2018-December 2018
Progress: Completed
Milestone 2
Investigate and agree on the appropriate open standards for the dataset.
Start/End dates: October 2018-December 2019
Milestone 3
Work with identified dataset contributors to agree process for ongoing maintenance of the dataset.
Start/End dates: December 2018 – June 2019
Milestone 4
Release the open data set on data.govt.nz and make it available via the data.govt.nz open data Application Programming Interface (API), and promote the opportunities of reuse that the dataset provides with government agencies, non-governmental organisations, business, and the public.
Start/End dates: December 2018 – June 2019
What we have been doing
- Research and analysis – Research on other jurisdiction’s government organisation registers, analysing the different fields and metadata standards used.
- Creation of a ‘strawman’ data model for public engagement on the model.
- Meetings and correspondence with the State Services Commission, Archives New Zealand, and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to discuss and agree on ownership of specific data fields eg Legal title, historic agency name.
How we are keeping diverse communities informed
- Blogging in the open on the approach and thinking behind it helps a broad range people and institutions to engage.
- Use of public and private twitter accounts help amplify and extend the reach of this work.
What’s next?
- Further engagement to get agreement about the ownership of data for a maintenance model.
- Engagement and agreement on an open standard for the dataset.