Civil society groups say the Government will 'feed cynicism' about its commitment to transparency unless it stops, takes a pause, and changes course on the latest iteration of an open government strategy.
The Government has been urged to delay its latest open government plan by a year, with civil society organisations concerned about insufficient community involvement and a lack of funding.
Work has been underway for some time on New Zealand’s fourth action plan for the Open Government Partnership, an international initiative to promote openness and transparency, with the document due to be submitted by the middle of this year.
In an April letter to Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins, the representatives of 10 civil society organisations said the Government should delay the plan’s completion by a year to address shortcomings in its work so far.
There had not been a sufficient commitment to, or funding for, co-creation in its design, with “a traditional consultation with insufficient time for substantive engagement” that went against both the OGP’s standards and the Government’s own policy guidance.
The plan was also being developed without any budget for the commitments within it, suggesting it could follow in the footsteps of previous iterations which had been “constrained in ambition and delivery by a lack of funding”.
The Government needed to defer submitting its plan until June 2022 and allow the initiatives to be included in the upcoming Budget cycle – particularly important if it was going to change to a four-year plan covering 2022 to 2026.
“Without a change to the process ... we have serious concerns about the value of engaging with the work to develop the plan, and believe that – counter to its intentions – Open Government Partnership work in New Zealand will continue to feed cynicism about ‘co-creation’.”
“When there’s something that’s so fundamental to democracy, you just can’t do that – if something as important as that is not fit-for-purpose, it really requires urgent work.” – Lisa Woods, Amnesty
New Zealand’s deadline for the completion of the plan has already been extended once, to mid-2021, after the Partnership announced it was giving governments greater flexibility due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A further extension to mid-2022 would still leave Cabinet with a relatively tight timeframe to include any Partnership commitments in next year’s Budget, the process for which will start before the end of this year.
In a Public Service Commission briefing to Hipkins with advice on how to respond to the letter, officials said “our intention has always been that following the idea-gathering phase, we move to a process that will involve the representatives of civil society (both organisations and members of the public) working directly with government agencies on developing possible commitments”.
Decisions around funding for initiatives sat with the agencies tasked with implementing them, and “in light of financial constraints around continuing the Covid-19 response and recovery, projects ... may need to be scaled or more agile than otherwise”.
Amnesty International NZ campaigns director Lisa Woods told Newsroom the spirit and intent of the Partnership was for governments and civil society to work together, but that had not been happening to date, with engagement “more along the lines of top-down planning than co-creation”.
Woods said the budget backing the government commitments also needed to be adequately funded given the goals of those involved.
One of Amnesty International’s specific concerns in the area of openness and transparency was the operation of the Official Information Act and the Government’s decision to kick a review down the road.
“When there’s something that’s so fundamental to democracy, you just can’t do that – if something as important as that is not fit-for-purpose, it really requires urgent work.”
Hipkins told Newsroom the Government’s third Partnership plan had been developed before he took the open government portion of the portfolio from Clare Curran, and he felt the document could have been more ambitious.
While the initiatives around the flow of information had generally gone well, there was more work to be done on participatory democracy.
“Open government isn't just about telling people what you're doing, it's also about actually being more inclusive and involving people more in the decision-making process.”
The Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk had done some good work to make Parliament more open and accessible through initiatives like an expansion of the schools outreach programme and improved streaming of select committee meetings.
The complications of Covid-19 and alert level restrictions had “accelerated massively” progress on digital inclusion, Hipkins said.
“Take Zoom: I don't think we would be using Zoom and video-conferencing as extensively in parliamentary proceedings now, had it not been for Covid-19 ...
“It makes it more accessible to the public, because once upon a time, if you were hearing a bill and you wanted to make a submission, and you were in Tauranga, you might be lucky if the committee came to Auckland and you'd have to drive to Auckland to do it ... whereas video-conferencing means that you can actually be there in person without having to leave your living room.”
Civil society groups were right that there may have not been enough resources associated with some of the Government’s plans, but the ease of the digital transition following the pandemic suggested changes “actually might be more operationally feasible than we previously thought”.
A spokeswoman for Hipkins later confirmed a decision on any extension of the Partnership plan deadline would likely be confirmed within weeks.
