The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is an international initiative of governments working with civil society to be more open, accountable and responsive. The State Services Commission is leading this work in New Zealand.

As an OGP member, New Zealand delivers an action plan every two years that is developed with the public. The plan focuses on specific, measurable commitments that improve transparency, accountability and public participation in government. New Zealand’s Third National Action Plan was published in December 2018.

We are leading Commitment 10, which supports trust in government. We are developing a new approach to monitoring and publicising how well government is managing information.

Commitment 10 is about providing visibility for the public so they can see the performance of the New Zealand government. Performance is measured against the requirements of the Public Records Act 2005 and our expectations of good information management. This visibility builds trust that they can hold the government to account for its decisions and actions. Currently information about the performance and progress is not always easy to access or understand for the public. 

As part of Commitment 10, we are creating a monitoring framework. This will  support public reporting on how the government is managing information. It will cover central and local government entities covered by our legislation, including Ministers of the Crown.

• Develop framework and draft measures to be completed by December 2018

• Engagement to be completed by July 2019

• Roll-out to be completed by July 2020

As the framework is rolled out, you will see an increase in the availability of data on the performance of information management. These insights will cover current performance, progress over time and areas for improvement.

If you want to access government-held information you will benefit from this framework. You will be able to find which organisations have practices in place to support locatable, usable information. You will also see us using the data collected to identify organisations to work with to lift performance.

In September 2018 we engaged with Information managers outside of our organisation. This engagement covered the monitoring framework as a concept and was a component of a wider Regulatory Programme. The findings confirmed our focus on developing the monitoring framework.

We have since completed a first draft of measures that will support the two key monitoring mechanisms: survey and audit. This will be shared for targeted engagement between March and May 2019. It will include the sharing of draft measures with the context of testing a survey tool.

We will update on our progress regularly, so keep checking in.   

Check out New Zealand’s website for work with the OGP. We regularly submit progress reports to the State Services Commission which will appear on the OGP website.