Integrity Talking Points: 14-19 March

March 19, 2010 – 1:34 pm Beith Atkinson

19 March 2010 

The conviction of an Auckland banker for misappropriating nearly $18 million confirms research published annually by large international consultancies, that fraud by employees often occurs over a number of years before detection and that the largest sums are defrauded by senior male managers, although mid career women are detected committing more fraud than others.  Greater opportunities and weaker controls relating to senior managers can place organisations at particular risk,  This is shown in a report from Dublin that the chairman of Anglo Irish Bank has been charged with fraud involving more than euro70 million. 

The Office of the Auditor General has published expectations about fraud control,  This includes the obligation on Boards and chief executives to refer suspected offending to the Police.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/stolen-millions-spent-sex-and-wine-3421475 http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jcdMAKr4l3FOBDmpBfyYv7REJmewD9EH0DAG2 /
http://oag.govt.nz/central-govt/2003-04/part8.htm/?searchterm=Fraud

18 March 2010 

There seems to be a touch of irony about the recent appointment to head of the US Justice Department public integrity unit that investigates corrupt officials.  He was previously a prosecutor in the International Court in the Hague, conducting cases against foreign officials charged with war crimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/us/12brfs-NEWPUBLICINT_BRF.html?scp=3&sq=government%20integrity&st=cse

17 March 2010 

Research NZ is halfway through its survey of State servants in 44 agencies about their Integrity and Conduct experiences.  So far responses have been received from over 50% of people asked to participate.  We hope that trustworthiness findings do not replicate public perceptions of Wall Street, where

  • 66%  agree that “most people on Wall Street would be willing to break the law if they believed they could make a lot of money and get away with it.”
  • 65% disagree that “most successful people on Wall Street deserve to make the kind of money they earn.”
  • 64% disagree that “in general, people on Wall Street are as honest and moral as other people.”

http://www.b2i.us/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?ResLibraryID=36766&GoTopage=1&Category=1777&BzID=1963&t=30

16 March 2010  

The US initiative to make government information more accessible has bumped up against a reluctance of bureaucracies to disclose the way they work. Despite the Presidential directive for agencies to take “affirmative steps”, a report finds there has been little concrete change and few agencies are releasing information any more frequently.  These findings published this week perhaps have equal relevance in New Zealand where since 1982 we have been required by the Official Information Act [section 4(a)]  “to increase progressively the availability of official information to the people of New Zealand”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/us/politics/15open.html?ref=politics
http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/information-data/background/

15 March 2010  

Enthusiasm and commitment are characteristics encouraged among government employees.  That passion must be exercised lawfully, and as the code of conduct specifies, we must use or agencies resources carefully and only for intended purposes.  In Northern Ireland, the Assistant  Information Commissioner, a role blending that of the New Zealand Ombudsman and the Privacy Commissioner has been sacked for allegedly leaking information to the media.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/data-supremo-sacked-after-leaks-to-press-14718063.html#ixzz0iDKkW9iO

14 March 2010  

Today is the anniversary of Albert Einstein’s birth.  One of his insightful remarks has particular relevance to integrity matters.    He observed that “not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

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By Beith Atkinson | Posted in Intergrity Talking Points | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Should Public Servants Use Twitter at Work?

March 17, 2010 – 9:00 am Matt Lane

This is a guest post by Trudy Rankin. Trudy Rankin is the CIO at the Department of Conservation.

Recently whilst dining with some of my fellow “senior women in IT” colleagues the subject of Twitter came up. In the ensuing discussion I discovered, to my astonishment, that I was the only one who used Twitter. Not only that, but the assumption of the others was that I, as a public servant, surely wouldn’t use it as a tool for work purposes, the general perception being that it was for finding out what your favourite movie star did during their nose hair trimming or leg waxing sessions.

The reality is that I do use Twitter for work and here’s why:

  • Twitter functions as my eyes and ears online to collect and distil information that matters to me in a way that is more efficient than setting up and scanning RSS feeds. Twitter allows me to quickly scan and selectively delve into far more news on a far wider range of topics than I could ever hope to find on my own. The success of this “eyes and ears” strategy is dependent on who I follow, of course. Careful selection is vital in sieving out the rubbish. Quite frankly, I am not interested in what you’re eating or drinking (@gnat’s Jalapeño Poppers aside as a stunning and truly fascinating example of sheer masochism http://yfrog.com/5hobetj 8:42 PM Mar 5th). I am however, very interested in new “stuff” you’ve read, experienced or heard about and how that affects what you are thinking about and planning.
  • They say Wellington is a village, but in reality there are a lot of people here that I may never meet. Move beyond Wellington and the chances are slim to none that I will ever hear about you and your good ideas. If someone I follow posts or retweets something someone else thought was interesting or useful, then I can look that person up to see whether what they regularly post is worth spending my time on. And when I tweet, it gives others the opportunity to see what interests me and whether there is value in getting in touch to share information or to collaborate.
  • Most importantly, I use Twitter as a means of sparking new avenues of enquiry. If someone tweets about something that they don’t normally tweet about I’m curious as to why they found it interesting / useful and how it might intersect or mix with something I’ve been thinking about or working on. I am particularly interested in synthesizing ideas, concepts, theories and best practice from very dissimilar disciplines. Sometimes subjects come up that you think couldn’t possibly relate to each other, but after a bit of thought you can see that they do. For example, a tweet from @timoreilly put me onto an amazing article about what makes a good teacher (http://bit.ly/c7h0tT). I started thinking about what the research had found and realised that the same skills and attitudes that define a good teacher are highly likely to be the same skills and attitudes a manager will have who is really good at developing their team and others around them. Because I care about being a good manager the transfer of information about good teaching skills to good management skills was useful and a real eye opener.

So, yes, I do use Twitter for work and no, I very rarely use it in my personal life. I’m quite certain no one cares one hoot about how many times I’ve shopped at Trash Palace (it’s great!) or whether I actually went surfing the day of the Chile earthquake tsunami.

There must be many other ways to use Twitter in the workplace and I would be interested in hearing from other IT professionals how they use Twitter to enhance their work.

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By Matt Lane | Posted in Govt 2.0, Guest post, research | Tagged , , , , | Comments (26)

(Introduction to) Integrity Talking Points: 8-12 March 2010

March 12, 2010 – 3:59 pm Beith Atkinson

Welcome to Integrity Talking Points.

Initially published on the Public Sector Intranet, Integrity Talking Points was created to promote integrity related discussions in New Zealand Government agencies. We have moved Integrity Talking Points here to In Development in the interest of openness, and with the hope that it may widen its readership. The intention is to highlight ethics and governance issues having currency either nationally or internationally. Daily entries will be aggregated and posted weekly, together with links to the cumulative record. We plan to add past entries that run from mid-December 2009 in the future.

Please feel encouraged to comment, expand on the content or debate the relevance of entries to the work of government in NZ.

Integrity Talking Points: 8-12 March 2010

12 March 2010

The need for rigorous controls to prevent conflicts of interest in agencies has been highlighted with the guilty plea from an senior public servant in the New York State pension fund. An informal process required investment approval of a political adviser, who steered money towards politically favoured firms. Checks and balances, actively monitored, are essential to avoid any abuse of process. This involves the transparent declaration, registration and periodic review of interests which may raise a perception of conflict with agency responsibilities.

Concern expressed by a New Zealand activist group about the activities of a member of the Commerce Commission in his private investment advisor capacity– on matters not relating to that Commission - highlight the need for agencies to rigorously maintain conflict of interest policies.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/former-hevesi-aide-pleads-guilty-in-corruption-case/
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10630993

11 March 2010

Under the caption “Restructuring again without an underlying philosophy” the Dominion Post has commented on organisational changes which Minsters have recently discussed. The article was written without any reference to, and apparently in ignorance of, the machinery of government material published by SSC. This material makes clear that a principles based “form follows function” philosophy is the essence of the approach taken by the State Services Commissioner when exercising the statutory responsibility to “review the machinery of government across all areas of government”.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/3433150/Restructuring-yet-again-without-an-underlying-philosophy
http://www.ssc.govt.nz/reviewing-mog

10 March 2010

The Law Commission has published an issues paper as part of its review of Privacy. This covers issues of relevance to agencies including information sharing and data matching, developments in technology, privacy breach notification, the powers and responsibilities of the Privacy Commissioner and the relationship between the Privacy Act and other statutes. The restriction on “vetting” job applicants, where Principle 2(2)(d) requires an applicant’s consent before approaching others for information, was not explored as part of the review. The Auditor General in a 2009 report on the inquiry into the appointment of Mary Anne Thompson commented that “it is important for all public sector employers to consider the general and specific approach they take to verifying the information presented in a curriculum vitae”.
http://talklaw.co.nz/privacyreview
http://oag.govt.nz/2009/immigration-volume-2/

9 March 2010

An analysis of the interface between good governance and the human and infrastructural impact of major earthquakes features in an entry in blogger Daniel Kaufmann’s GovernancePost. Comparisons of major earthquakes since 1980 where more than 100 people died, indicate that governance and corruption control are determinants of those death tolls. ‘The real “governance test” is the ability and flexibility of a country’s institutions to address and contain crisis…’

Daniel Kaufmann, a Chilean, was Director, Global Governance & Anti-Corruption, at the World Bank Institute from 2003 – 2008 and developed the Worldwide Governance Indicators published annually. When commenting on the 2009 WGI he remarked “the all mighty countries in the G-8 are not the models of good governance; instead the Nordics and New Zealand are”.
http://thekaufmannpost.net/natural-disasters-national-diligence-the-chilean-earthquake-in-perspective/

8 March 2010

The Tongan Commission of Inquiry into the Princess Ashika sinking ended last week. A series of fundamental breaches of good practice were disclosed, including buying a vessel that was being sold for scrap, granting provisional seaworthiness certificates, and operating it with disregard for good seamanship. The Tongan government has reacted to criticism by Global Integrity about Ministers and officials involved. A Radio NZ summary of the enquiry was broadcast as the third section on the following Media Watch link.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/national/mwatch/2010/03/mediawatch_for_7_march_2010
http://commons.globalintegrity.org/2010/03/responses-to-global-integritys-op-ed-on.html

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Google comments on NZGOAL (NZ Government Open Access and Licensing framework)

March 8, 2010 – 3:36 pm Keitha Booth

Update (12/03/10): Google’s post: Promoting Open Government in New Zealand

The State Services Commission and Department of Internal Affairs are now finalising the New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL) which will then be put to Cabinet for consideration.  In doing so, we are incorporating excellent feedback from State Services agencies and the public.  Much of this was received at meetings and presentations and during one-on-one discussions.  The main exception to that was the comprehensive and very helpful submission received from Google.

The feedback and that submission were very informative and wide-ranging, covering, amongst other matters,  the description and scope of the restrictions, attribution requirements for datasets, implementation and cultural change advice, and ongoing administration of NZGOAL once released.  There was also keen interest in which agencies will adopt NZGOAL and how it will be administered.

Government agencies have also been testing NZGOAL’s Review and Release Process.  This has confirmed that licensing is new territory for many agencies.  A simple yet sufficiently comprehensive NZGOAL, sample attribution text, implementation assistance and ongoing training will be critical  factors for high uptake

Google’s submission notes that

“Opening up government-held data and information for wider use has the potential to release a wave of innovation and creativity, with significant benefits for the public in terms of better access to public services, and for government, through cost savings and better public engagement and input to policy formulation”

With Google’s agreement, the State Services Commission is releasing this submission publicly.  It is hoped that this will encourage further debate on opening up government-held information and the benefits of the Internet as a platform to release this information.

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By Keitha Booth | Posted in Govt 2.0, Strategy | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Amendment to the Public Finance Act Regulations - Web 2.0

March 8, 2010 – 9:34 am Matt Lane

This is a guest post by Genevieve Hancock. Genevieve Hancock is a Solicitor at the Government Technology Services (GTS) within the Department of Internal Affairs.

Want to use social media tools to communicate with New Zealanders? Or manipulate data feeds with Yahoo!Pipes? Want to use WordPress to create some wonderful new application for your Government employer?

Well now it is easier. GTS lawyers and Treasury officials have worked together to amend the regulations under the Public Finance Act 1989 allowing departments to grant

“any guarantee or indemnity contained in the standard terms and conditions for the purchase, licence, or use by the Crown of— (i) an Internet site: (ii) software: (iii) information technology tools, products, or services.”

Prior to the amended regulations, under the provisions of the Public Finance Act, only the Minister of Finance was able to give indemnities of the type usually required in the standard terms for web 2.0 tools and applications. Entering into the standard terms for web 2.0 tools and applications has therefore previously been problematic under the Public Finance Act.

The websites, software, tools, products and services intended to be covered by the amendment are:

  • social networking and collaboration sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, MySpace and Flickr, YouTube, Animoto and Vimeo
  • analytics and data manipulation tools such as Google Analytics and Urchin, FeedBurner and Yahoo! Pipes
  • hosted services such as wordpress, PBWiki, Confluence and SocialText.
  • packaged software (such as Microsoft Office, Matlab), SSL digital certificates (such as VeriSign, Thawte), Server virtualisation software (such as VMWare), database software (such as Oracle, SQL Server), open source software (where the contribution agreements in particular may require an indemnity), software supporting web technologies (such as Adobe Flash Player, Sun Java), antivirus software (Sophos) and smartphone software (Blackberry, Symbian).

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By Matt Lane | Posted in Govt 2.0, Guest post, Legal, Participation | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (6)

Australians propose open access to Public Sector Information and use of the Creative Commons BY licence to facilitate re-use

December 11, 2009 – 1:57 pm Keitha Booth

The Australian 2.0 Taskforce’s draft report, ‘Engage: getting on with Government 2.0′, makes bold recommendations aimed at making “government not just more open and democratic, not just more consultative, but also a truer collaboration between the apparatus of the state and its citizens”.

It suggests that the USA, UK and NZ are leading the ‘transition towards Government 2.0′ and lists what these countries have done to merit that judgement - see the New Zealand list on pages 12-14.

I was pleased to see the draft New Zealand Open Access and Licensing (NZGOAL) framework in that list as well as NZ’s guidance on online participation, social media, the development of this blog, the National Broadband map and examples of NZ agencies’ innovative use of ‘Government 2.0′.

The draft report’s central recommendation is a Declaration of Open Government by the Federal Government. This is in line with President Obama’s 21 January 2009 Transparency and Open Government Declaration which was followed up this week by the Open Government Directive.

The draft report argues that there is economic and social value to be gained from governments making public sector information (PSI) available for re-use and distributed at zero price. This will be facilitated by ‘licensing PSI, on as liberal terms as possible, to drive wide-ranging benefits including better government, greater innovation and economic and social benefits.

The copyright and licensing proposals in Recommendation 6  are consistent with but go further than our draft NZGOAL framework. They propose that :

  • PSI is released as early as practicable and regularly updated to ensure its currency is maintained;
  • it is licensed under the Creative Commons BY standard as the default;
  • more restrictive licensing is reserved for special circumstances only, such use to be in accordance with general guidance or specific advice provided by the proposed new Office of the Information Commissioner;
  • develop rules whereby ‘the existing stock of PSI could be automatically designated Creative Commons BY , with other PSI being re-licensed Creative Commons BY on application with rights of appeal to the new Information Commissioner’;
  • new government contracts or agreements with a third party after June 2011 include a clause stating the Commonwealth’s obligation to publish relevant data and that this be under a Creative Commons BY licence.

We (the Department of Internal Affairs and the State Services Commission) are revising the draft NZGOAL in the light of feedback received.  We will consider the recommendations in this draft report and also incorporate the very thoughtful feedback received from the public and from government agencies. Our final document will be submitted to Cabinet for its consideration next year following the customary final consultation process with departments.

Please continue to let us know what advice you would like included in the final NZGOAL framework and accompanying guidance. Thanks very much for your comments to date.

Post a comment here or email nzgoal@ssc.govt.nz.

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By Keitha Booth | Posted in Govt 2.0, Legal, Strategy | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Mouthwash vs Deathwash

October 1, 2009 – 11:58 am Matt Lane

This is a guest post by Hadyn Green. Hadyn Green is a Senior Analyst in the Ministry of Education’s Research Division. His main area of work is student assessment and he works with data on a daily basis.

At the Open Govt BarCamp held recently, one group was asked to raise their hands if they believed what they read in the newspaper. I was one of only two people who did so. I’m not entirely gullible, but if the paper says “Mr Heatley announced a 20,000 tonne increase in the total allowable catch for Hoki, New Zealand’s largest finfish export” then I believe it. And why not?

Should the paper then report something about research into fish populations showing a reversal of downward trends, then I will be a little more critical.

A while ago came across an article in the Australian Dental Journal on the role of alcohol in oral carcinogenesis with particular reference to alcohol-containing mouthwashes. Or basically, will mouthwash give you oral cancer? With an abstract like that it was bound to end up in the newspaper.

But sadly this was a clear case of poor research (bold mine):

Professor Laurence Walsh, head of the School of Dentistry at the University of Queensland has rejected the claim and said there was no established link between mouthwash and oral cancer. In a letter to the editors of the journal, Professor Walsh criticised the authors of the paper for drawing on a “small and selective group of studies”. “A wide range of critical and systematic reviews over many years have failed to show any statistically significant association between mouthwash use and oral cancer,” he said. “There is certainly nothing in the current paper to change our thinking in that regard.”

I used this example to start a discussion about good research versus bad research called “Mouthwash vs Deathwash”, because, naturally, this is not an isolated case. These Deathwash research reports are constantly found in major newspapers.

But it seems futile to rail against Deathwash research. After all, there will always be “quirky” research reports or “interesting” secondary results discovered in the primary investigation. Moreover there seems to be a poor public perception of research; that any research that shows the status quo is incorrect tends to be more accepted. I call it the “Iguanodon effect” (research is only right until something else comes along, despite whether that’s correct or not).

So if it’s the case now that we see reported poorly researched, non-peer reviewed analysis of information in the media, what’s going to happen if we open up all government information? I suspect you know the answer. And what do we, as public servants, do when the inevitable happens?

We tend to have to be reactionary. To release a statement like “there is no established link between mouthwash and oral cancer” is silly, because nobody would’ve contemplated that there was. But we feel that we have to be ready with that statement ready to go lest the opposite is reported. As such our risk management processes are finely tuned.

With any luck open government data will help. I don’t expect the ratio of Mouthwash to Deathwash analysis to change, but the subsequent critique of them will be easier and faster and done with more regularity. With open data “the truth” can travel around the world just as fast as “the lie”. Of course the truth still takes baggage with it, but it’ll be packed and ready to go.

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By Matt Lane | Posted in Govt 2.0, Guest post | Tagged , , , , | Comments (7)

Measuring the value of data reuse

September 2, 2009 – 2:48 pm Clifton

I went to the Open Government Data barcamp in the weekend, where I starting a discussion on how to measure the value of reusing government held data.

I shared the ways that I had found it had being done overseas:

  • The District of Columbia estimated the cost developing the software that won their reuse of data competition.
  • The European Union estimated the value of the market created through making data available for reuse through a number of estimates:
    • crowdsourcing: data reusers are asked to estimate the market size;
    • turnover: various forms of turnover, less the cost of accessing the data;
    • income: income received by the data reusers;
    • staff: the number of staff employed by the data reusers.

There was a discussion thread around the difficulty of measuring the value of reuse:

  • The secondary and subsequent reusers of data also add value; the total of which may exceed the primary reuser.
  • It is hard to value public good.
  • It is hard to value democratic value - yet democracy requires transparency.
  • Downloads or access are a proxy for demand and hence of value.
  • The cost of collection is relatively easy to calculate and so could be a lower bound of value.

There was another thread of discussion around charging for data:

  • Charging can be a barrier:
    • The cost deters potential reusers.
    • The reuse unit at the agency may impose a minimum quantum of charge to manage its work load and ensure return on effort - thereby creating another barrier. (UK experience)
  • Charging may increase the data quality, as the agency gets rewarded for better quality data

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By Clifton | Posted in Govt 2.0, Participation | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (5)

Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework released

August 27, 2009 – 4:39 pm Keitha Booth

Today the State Services Commission is releasing the draft New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL) (HTML with comments). This document provides guidance for State Services agencies on:

  • open access to non-copyright information; and
  • open licensing of copyright works,

in both cases with a view to allowing their re-use by others. (It does not apply to information or works containing personal or other sensitive information).

The draft NZGOAL sets out a series of policy principles which embrace, among other things, the notions of open access, open licensing, creativity, authenticity, non-discrimination and open formats. It describes the drivers behind this work, the departmental consultation process that has taken place, the Creative Commons New Zealand law licences and sets out a review and release process which agencies can use to determine the basis on which information and copyright works may be released.

This work, which has been prepared in conjunction with the ICT Group of the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), was endorsed by public service departments earlier this year when they responded to the Suggested All-of-Government Approach to Licensing of Public Sector Copyright Works: Discussion Paper . This paper and the Summary and Analysis of Departmental Feedback are also being released today to provide further background.

Today’s release is a critical step towards further opening up government’s information and data. It is considered to be a key plank in bringing about creative, social and economic benefits for the people of New Zealand, fostering greater transparency of government performance and making government information and data work for you.

We are publishing the framework as a draft so that it can be road-tested and improved. We want to know what agencies and users have to say about this approach. Have we pitched it right? Are we meeting the needs and interests of those who wish to re-use government information and data? Is anything unclear?  In what additional ways could we help?

Those who read all three documents (the draft NZGOAL, the Discussion Paper and the Summary and Analysis of Departmental Feedback) will see that we have changed our approach slightly from that envisaged in the Discussion Paper and the Summary and Analysis of Departmental Feedback. The main changes are as follows:

  • Rather than adopting what we had referred to as an NZGILF and NZGILF Toolkit, we are now proposing a core framework (the draft NZGOAL) which will be supplemented by guidance notes addressing either specific topics on which further information may be required or issues which arise in practice.
  • A number of topics identified in the Summary and Analysis of Departmental Feedback as being appropriate candidates for the core framework document (the draft NZGOAL) are now more likely to be addressed in separate guidance notes.
  • While, in the Summary and Analysis of Departmental Feedback, we had contemplated a potential place for the Creative Commons Zero tool, we have decided not to advocate its use in NZGOAL. Suggesting to agencies that they consider waiving Crown copyright or other copyright in their copyright works (which would be the effect of advocating Creative Commons Zero) would raise a miscellany of policy and legal issues that are beyond the scope of NZGOAL. Moreover, we do not consider the use of Creative Commons Zero to be necessary.

SSC and DIA are also mindful that the current copyright standard in the New Zealand Government Web Standards will need to be updated. We have that in our sights.

Please join this discussion. The last day for receiving comment will be Friday 9 October 2009.  You can add a comment to this post, the sections of the draft NZGOAL, and/or email your comments directly to nzgoal@ssc.govt.nz if you wish.

So far as copyright works are concerned, NZGOAL proposes that agencies apply the most liberal of the New Zealand Creative Commons law licences to those of their copyright works that are appropriate for release, unless there is a restriction which would prevent this. The most liberal Creative Commons licence is the Attribution (BY) licence. So far as non-copyright information is concerned, NZGOAL recommends the use of clear “no-known rights” statements, to provide certainty for people wishing to re-use that information.

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By Keitha Booth | Posted in Guidance | Tagged , , , , | Comments (55)

Exposing non-personal data in new ways

August 3, 2009 – 5:39 pm Keitha Booth

As many readers of this blog will know, SSC has been pursuing various work-streams under the rubric of the Open Government Information and Data Re-use work Project. It is continuing to do so in collaboration with, among others, the ICT Group at the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA).

One of the many issues we’ve encountered along the way is the perception that wider government has not released many useful datasets, databases and other information resources. While we appreciate that much work still needs to be done (and is being done) in this space, we thought it might be helpful to provide the public with a list of just some of the datasets, databases and other information resources that are already available online, usually on the websites of their source agencies.

We’ve collated a list of links to a number of dataset, database and other information resources from a subset of departments (and other agencies) and are releasing that list by way of an Excel spreadsheet, a .csv file, and an Atom feed (which, as many will know, is one of a number of different types of structured, machine-readable feeds and the type that SSC recommends for use by government).

This list has been collated from details provided by government agencies working with the SSC and DIA on the Open Government Information and Data Re-use work programme.  It is not a complete list and does not include data from agencies such as the Ministry for the Environment, NIWA and Landcare Research which are leaders in opening up their data.  We see the list as illustrating the vast continuum of government online data already currently available.
A small seedling emerging from soil. Image by realblades
We are publishing this spreadsheet and feed as a small first step towards opening up non-personal New Zealand government data in new ways. We also see this approach as a proof of concept in SSC and DIA’s work in developing Government’s approach to opening up non-personal New Zealand government data.

As we recognise that this information has been published in a range of presentation formats and with differing use rights, the spreadsheet and feed include an agency contact who will assist with any queries from users.

They also list the dataset name, agency, online address, licence arrangements if known, and usage details if known.  Please note that the data links to its agency’s website which will have a copyright ownership statement.  It will be necessary to contact the agency to agree licensing arrangements if there is no clear statement on the website.

This work is a precursor to a formal release later this year of a New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing Framework (NZGOALF) which will provide guidance for agencies and the public on the use of the Creative Commons suite of New Zealand Law licences across the New Zealand State Services.  We will be at the NZ Open Govt Data Barcamp/Hackfest to discuss this work.

We are also working to incorporate the Open Government Data principles into our work, to the extent that they are appropriate for the New Zealand environment, but within the context of New Zealand’s copyright law.
 
We see the release of government-held data as a necessary but not sufficient step for both the community and government to reap the benefits of re-using it to create social and economic growth for New Zealanders and the economy. Therefore our work will also continue to look at making it easier to find and reuse government-held data and information.
 
We expect that there will be strong interest in this release, particularly from the laudable community which has set up the Open Data Catalogue.  We encourage you to use this feed and also want your comment on our approach and on this data. Is this a helpful way to release/expose open government data? Please tell us if there is a better way.

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By Keitha Booth | Posted in Govt 2.0, Participation | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (14)