More openness needed in bowel screening information

BECAUSE it’s spring and the sun is shining for once, I am trying to be openminded.

(Note the comma placement there, those of you who may feel I am as openminded as a firmly shut pocketknife. )

In the backslapping about the Labourled Government’s first year achievements, did anyone hear the word transparency?

Maybe, the dear wee birdies making a mess on my recently recovered deck were making too much noise and I missed it.

Remember the Government’s first minister for open government’s declaration: ‘‘My priority is that this will be the most open, most transparent Government that New Zealand has ever had.’’

True, it was the nowdemoted Clare Curran who said those fine words. During her reign, the parsnips remained raw and butterless but has new minister Chris Hipkins toddled very far down the openness track yet?

The best I could find from him was a September announcement telling us Cabinet papers will be proactively released from next January unless there is a good reason not to.

Heady stuff. Pardon me if I feel a little giddy, but the cold air whizzing past my nostrils at glacial speed has that effect.

The Cabinet papers proposal is included in the draft Open Government Partnership action plan for 201820, a document which appears to have attracted little media coverage and, if I understand the website whizzbangery, not much comment either.

This is the third twoyearly action plan put out by the Government, a requirement under the partnership, where participating governments agree to create greater transparency, increase civic participation and use new technologies to make their governments more open, effective and accountable.

Part of the 201618 plan involved developing a clear statement of government policy on proactive release of Cabinet papers and related material by June last year. It is hard to comprehend why, even given the change of government, we’ve waited so long for action.

The 201618 plan and the new draft are enthusiastic about increased monitoring of agencies’ handling of Official Information Act requests, improving access to official information by publishing responses to requests on websites, and encouraging more proactive releases of information.

Great. What concerns me, however, is the lack of emphasis on the quality of official information and the need to stop spin getting in the way of the facts.

An example of the need for improvement showed up in August, in a media release on the Southern DHB, presumably organised by the National Bowel Screening Programme, waxing lyrical about the programme’s introduction in the South.

It told us that by the end of July, 2200 of the kits which test for microscopic amounts of blood in faeces had shown a negative result, which meant ‘‘ ‘peace of mind’ for these residents and their families’’. A total of 141 tests had come back as ‘‘positive for the presence of blood’’. (This would trigger referral for a colonoscopy.)

But was all that true? Because the programme sets a threshold for the amount of blood needed to return a positive result, some of the ‘‘negative’’ results would have contained blood, but not enough to reach that threshold.

When I inquired further, I was told that by August 20, when 3353 ‘‘negative’’ results had been recorded, roughly a third of them (1111) contained some blood. By my reckoning, at least 100 would have registered a positive result in the bowelscreening pilot, which had a more sensitive threshold than the national programme.

The ministry did not accept the term ‘‘peace of mind’’ might provide false reassurance, even though it is known the programme will not detect all cancers. Information given directly to participants does not indicate what proportion of cancers the programme is estimated to detect/miss, nor is the threshold explained.

When I sought clarification of another statement in this response, where I was pretty sure an error had been made, the ministry insisted on putting that question through its formal OIA process. It took almost three weeks. I was right. Wouldn’t you have thought ministry staff might act promptly to ensure erroneous information wasn’t spread?

In another response to me on bowel screening matters, the ministry made a point of noting that in making its response decision it had referred to the ombudsman guidelines about frivolous, vexatious and trivial requests. Hmmm. I wonder what message I was supposed to get from that?

The ombudsman’s office tells me the ministry has recently undergone comprehensive OIA training which included advice relevant to concerns I had raised.

Because it’s spring, and I’m trying to be openminded, I want to believe the ministry may yet soar to new transparency heights. And, like the fledglings leaving my upper deck for the open sky, I hope unexpected winds will not send them off course.