New Zealanders should soon find it easier to see the information that goes before Cabinet ministers, but there are concerns some of the changes amount to 'spin over substance'
Government ministers are to share more of the advice they receive from officials, as part of a long-awaited expansion of the proactive release regime.
However, one expert has raised concerns about “serious flaws” in the changes, saying they could lead to spin over substance from ministers reporting on their own transparency.
In late 2018, Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins announced the Government would begin to proactively release Cabinet papers within 30 business days of a final decision being made “unless there is good reason not to publish”.
A review of the policy and its effectiveness was meant to have taken place by late 2019, but faced repeated delays spanning more than two years.
Now, Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins has revealed the next steps in the Government’s proactive release programme.
In a Cabinet paper outlining the changes, Hipkins said the Government had already made significant progress in increasing openness and transparency, but the time was right for more improvements.
“Through our response to the Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years, we have seen how important trust and confidence can be to the effectiveness of government.”
With Newsroom having recently reported on mixed compliance and poor record keeping in relation to the release of Cabinet papers, Hipkins said a reporting regime would be put in place to better understand whether agencies were complying with the requirements.
The Public Service Commission would be asked to collect data every six months on the number of Cabinet papers approved for release, and the number of papers which were actually released – but not the number of papers which actually went to Cabinet to start with.
There would also be improved reporting on Official Information Act requests, including the number of requests responded to within 20 working days, average response times, extensions and transfers.
Hipkins said he would be “encouraging other ministers to consider adopting” his approach of proactively releasing all the advice they received, although ministers would be left to outline their individual expectations with the agencies they oversaw.
“I recognise the extent to which proactive release practices can be implemented will vary across portfolios and will depend on a range of factors, and accept that the approach I have taken to proactive release with my agencies will not work for all agencies and ministers’ offices.”
Government departments would also be asked to consider proactively releasing categories of information for which they repeatedly received OIA requests, such as lists of briefings to ministers, in the interest of saving time and effort while also improving public trust.
“It is paradoxical that a paper on developing openness in government was developed in secret without consulting any of the civil society actors involved or the media - this has again been developed looking solely at the perspective of government agencies and ministers." – Andrew Ecclestone
Andrew Ecclestone, an open government researcher and senior associate at Victoria University of Wellington’s Institute for Government Studies, told Newsroom the proposed changes showed a willingness to increase the volume of information being proactively published.
However, that did not mean the Government could be complacent, and there were “serious flaws” in the plans which could have been avoided if officials had lived up to their promises of open government.
“It is paradoxical that a paper on developing openness in government was developed in secret without consulting any of the civil society actors involved or the media – this has again been developed looking solely at the perspective of government agencies and ministers,” Ecclestone said.
The fact that Hipkins was only encouraging ministers to proactively release the advice they received, rather than requiring it, highlighted the need for a “revised and modernised” OIA which could set out a framework for proactive disclosures.
Failing to publish the total number of papers taken to Cabinet as part of the reporting requirements meant the resulting statistics would be next to meaningless and amount to “spin over substance”, Ecclestone said.
While the Cabinet paper talked about the importance of accessibility, that did not appear to include specific measures for people with disabilities or the digitally excluded.
Govt 'on a journey'
Speaking to Newsroom, Hipkins said he was happy to reach the next stage of the proactive release programme but there was “a long way to go” to ensure previous commitments were being met.
“What the stocktake of how we're going highlighted is that practice is variable, and so by putting in place some better data collection methods, we'll be able to keep a bit of a better track of that.”
Speaking about the decision to omit the overall number of Cabinet papers from statistics, Hipkins said there were a significant number of papers which could not be released for legitimate reasons, such as those dealing with national security or diplomatic issues. However, it was possible some adjustments could be made as part of the implementation process.
While routinely releasing ministerial advice had worked well for Hipkins in his education and public service portfolios, it had been more challenging for his Covid-19 response work due to the speed at which decisions were being made.
Asked whether the Government had considered requiring ministers to release the advice they received, rather than leaving it to personal discretion, Hipkins said: “We're on a journey, so this is the next step, and we're heading down a road where more and more information will be released as a matter of routine without people having to necessarily do anything about it.”
While some ministers and officials were concerned about the potential impact on staff time, his experience had been that proactive releases were a better use of resources.
“If it's being frequently requested anyway, then doing it proactively potentially takes some work out of it for the public service, because they can have a regular release schedule and it just becomes part of the routine cycle of releasing information, and it's more transparent and it's better for everybody.”
The next step for the Government was putting the regular reporting on compliance into place to ensure there was greater transparency.
