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Commitment 7 progress report: 31 December 2020

Open Government Partnership New Zealand National Action Plan 2018-2020

Progress report: November –December 2020

Commitment 7: Official information

Lead agency: Ministry of Justice and the Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission

Objective: To 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 by publishing responses to requests for information made under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). This commitment builds on work - undertaken as part of the National Action Plan 2016-2018 - on official information to make information more accessible, which promotes good government and trust and confidence in the State Services.

Ambition: New Zealanders:

  • can have confidence that the regulation of official information remains fit-for-purpose
  • have equitable access to official information released in response to specific requests.

OGP values: Public Participation, Transparency, Accountability

Milestones

Milestone 1

Test the merits of undertaking a review of the Official Information Act 1982 and provide and publish advice to Government

Start date: Following the report back of the Privacy Bill

End date: September 2019

Progress: some delays

Milestone 2

Achieve a measurable increase in the proactive publication of official information request responses

Start/End dates: October 2018 to June 2020 

Progress: underway

Milestone 3

Implement a policy to publish Cabinet papers proactively within 30 days of final decisions, unless there are good reasons to withhold specific papers

Start/End dates: October 2018 to June 2019

Progress: completed

What we have been doing

Milestone 1:

  • The Ministry reported to the Minister in September 2019.
  • Before the 17 October 2020 General Election, the previous Minister of Justice indicated interest in a potential review of the Act, subject to Cabinet decision on the scope and timing made in the next Parliamentary term.
  • The new Minister of Justice is assessing what work within the Justice portfolio should be advanced this term – including the potential for a review of the OIA.

[In March 2021 the Minister of Justice released the advice he had received from the Ministry as a result of its public consultation on the Official Information Act 1982]

Milestone 2:

  • The latest Official Information Act (OIA) statistics for 116 government agencies, covering the period July to December 2020, were released on 4 March 2021. Overall, agencies collectively completed 25,332 official information requests between July and December 2020, a sharp increase in volume of nearly 5,400, or more than 27%, on the previous six months. They responded to 24,631, or 97.2%, of requests within legislated timeframes.
  • Agencies published 1,876 OIA responses from July to December 2020, compared to 1,233 in the previous reporting period to June 2020, a 52% increase. The number of OIA responses published is 65% up on the first six-month period of the National Action Plan period, which ran to December 2018 (during which 1,138 were published).

Milestone 3:

  • This Milestone has been completed.

How we are including diverse voices

Milestone 1:

  • The consultation was publicly available through the Ministry of Justice Consultation Hub.
  • The Ministry identified and emailed interested individuals and organisations, including those representing minority groups, inviting them to make written submissions. They also encouraged them to forward the invitation to others.

How we are keeping diverse communities informed

Milestone 1:

  • The new Minister of Justice is assessing what work within the Justice portfolio should be advanced this term – including the potential for a review of the OIA.

Milestone 2:

  • The Commission’s reports on OIA Statistics are published 6-monthly on its website and include statistics on agencies' proactive publication of responses to official information requests. In addition to releasing the data in Excel files, the data is available in an online tool that allows the user to customise and download OIA data.
  • The full dataset going back to 2015/16 is now available as a CSV file on both the Commission’s website and on data.govt.nz. This is updated six-monthly with each new data collection.
  • A dataset showing the publishing locations of agencies’ OIA responses (where agencies use a centralised publication model), was first published in November 2020. It will also be updated six-monthly, and is also available on both the Commission’s proactive release webpage and data.govt.nz. This acts as central access point for users looking for proactively released information of this type.

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 in HTML on the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet website.
  • A dataset showing the publishing locations of agencies’ Cabinet papers (where agencies use a centralised publication model), is also available on both the Commission’s proactive release webpage and data.govt.nz. This acts as a central access point for users looking for proactively released information of this type.

What’s next?

Milestone 1

  • The new Minister of Justice is assessing what work within the Justice portfolio should be advanced this term – including the potential for a review of the OIA.

Milestone 2

  • The next OIA statistics collection covering the period January to June 2021 will take place in July 2021, for publication in September.

Milestone 3:

  • The Commission continues to provide advice agencies on the publication of Cabinet papers as required. The Commission expects to start collecting data agencies’ publication of papers on behalf of ministers during 2021. A central access point for users looking for proactively released OIA responses and Cabinet papers has been created. A centralised platform for published Cabinet papers remains in development.

Links – Evidence of progress and Milestones achieved

Milestone 1

Milestone 2

Milestone 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Zealand's Plan