Wheels of open government grind on . . . but slowly
The public has a right to know – but just not straight away, Rob Kidd discovers.
THE OFFICIAL Information Act allows anyone access to information held by government bodies or ministers, unless there’s a good reason not to release it.
For more than 20 years, whether they knew it or not, Kiwis could have a look at official memos, reports, emails, statistics and balance sheets. And it is all available in 20 working days. In theory.
But the wheels of open government grind very slowly.
As long as they provide a reason, departments can ask for an extension before replying with the requested information, and figures released under the OIA show many of them do, some taking more than a year to get a response out.
Last year the Ombudsman, the independent authority designed to keep government agencies honest, received more complaints than ever before. Of the 1236 grievances, nearly half were related to the time it took for information to be passed on.
It is a trend that has got Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei calling for an overhaul of the act.
‘‘ From our perspective, Government departments do generally drag their feet,’’ she said.
‘‘I know some requests around SkyCity took twice as long to come through . . . and often when you get requests back they’re
very
little so badly blacked out there’s information that’s usable.’’
She put the onus squarely with the relevant ministers. ‘‘Part of this is about the public being aware of ministers deliberately withholding information.’’
Turei reckoned the act was not being taken seriously by the Government and questioned whether consequences for those who breached it were strong enough.
The Greens have long pushed for greater transparency and have renewed their calls for a nononsense OIA with tightened time limits and legal responsibilities and penalties for individual public servants.
In early November, when the Sunday Star- Times sent the OIA request to the 28 ministries and departments asking for details of the requests fielded by them in the past two years, many replied within the first couple of weeks.
Now, more than two months on, two tardy agencies remained.
The Corrections Department initially requested an extension until December 21 but that new deadline lapsed without explanation.
When it was contacted last week, a spokesperson said the request would be completed by the end of the day. It finally arrived two days later.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment was also late.
‘‘Unfortunately it appears that your OIA request was not lodged as it should have been. I’m really sorry about this,’’ a spokeswoman said, adding that it would be the end of next week when it would be done.
The Accident Compensation Corporation and Housing New Zealand led the way in requesting extended time to reply to the public’s requests for information.
ACC asked for an extension in 38 per cent of cases over the past two years. It said it was due to ‘‘the unprecedented volume of requests, the complexity of many of those requests, and resourcing constraints’’, while the Housing NZ said it was ‘‘highly complex requests’’ that slowed it down. They were not the only standouts. Internal Affairs had data missing and question marks thrown in to fill gaps. Transport’s stats appeared to show it had answered an OIA request more than a year before it had even been lodged, and Education’s archaic database meant it could barely provide any meaningful numbers.
The Ministry of Health in contrast has been bogged down in a deluge of OIA requests from tobacco companies ( see story above).
None of this surprised political and OIA junkie Keith Ng.
He described the whole process as ‘‘a vicious circle’’ where politicians made it difficult for the public to get the answers they wanted, which led to wider lines of enquiry, slowing down the whole process. ‘‘To be honest, as a user of the OIA I’ve lost quite a lot of faith in the process,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s getting to a point where it’s immediately antagonistic.’’
Though the Ombudsman was in place to make sure the Government played by the rules, Ng said it was essentially toothless.
‘‘With any kind of system where there’s a set of guidelines, but people inside the system know everything and the person trying to find out knows nothing, it’s impossible to police,’’ he said.
‘‘Even the Ombudsman is an
blogger
outsider until they get in and rummage around.’’
Despite exceeding targets by dealing with 92 per cent of urgent investigations within four months, just 44 per cent of non-urgent but high public interest investigations were completed within six months. That meant more than half the people requesting information had to wait at least half a year for answers.
In the Ombudsman’s annual report, released midway through last year, the issue of dealing with OIA requests on time was acknowledged as a serious and growing problem.
‘‘This is a worrying trend, and we are currently considering what further action we may need to take in the area of delays, including the possibility of a general review and administrative audit of agencies’ official information request handling procedures,’’ the report said.
Deputy Ombudsman Leo Donnelly said there needed to be a culture change whereby information was provided to the public more proactively.