The benefit of open government

Open governments make it easy for their citizens to understand how:

• the government works
• they can influence government policies and services
• they can check that those policies and services are working.

International Open Government Partnership website

New Zealand has a strong history of open and transparent government that is internationally recognised.

New Zealand’s Open Government Partnership website

New Zealand’s commitments

New Zealand’s Fourth National Action Plan 2023 to 2024 shows the 8 ways we have committed to being an open government under the Open Government Partnership. The 8 commitments are divided into 3 themes.

National Action Plan 2023 to 2024 — Open Government Partnership New Zealand

Theme 1 — Public participation

Adopt a community engagement tool — Commitment 1

Adoption by the Public Service of the Policy Community Engagement Tool (PCET) to lift the quality of community engagement for significant initiatives.

Research deliberative processes for community engagement — Commitment 2

Research how deliberative processes can be adapted to work well in the New Zealand context.  This will be done by identifying at least 2 examples of deliberative democratic processes on meaningful issues through a public sector / civil society / community alliance.

Establish an inclusive, multi-channel approach to the delivery of government information and services — Commitment 3

Support the provision of inclusive government information and services that are accessible to and meet diverse needs of all the people of Aotearoa.

Theme 2 — Information to support financial accountability

Design and implement a National Counter Fraud and Corruption Strategy — Commitment 4

Unite and coordinate government agencies’ work to counter fraud and corruption risks. This will strengthen the system’s ability to identify and combat fraud and corruption risks and enhance transparency and accountability.

Increase transparency of beneficial ownership of companies and limited partnerships — Commitment 5

Increase the transparency of the beneficial ownership of New Zealand companies and limited partnerships by introducing legislation to make beneficial owners’ identifying information available on a public register.

Improve Government Procurement Transparency — Commitment 6

Improve the transparency of government sourcing activity by making changes to the Government Electronic Tender Service (GETS). This will be done by developing a digital data platform (or leverage existing platforms) to capture procurement information, in alignment with the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS).

Theme 3 — Access to and usability of public information

Strengthen scrutiny of Official Information Act exemption clauses in legislation — Commitment 7

Strengthen the scrutiny of legislative clauses that propose to override the disclosure requirements of the Official Information Act 1982.

Improved transparency and accountability of algorithm use across government — Commitment 8

Strengthen transparency and accountability through improved supports to implement the principles of the Algorithm Charter for Aotearoa New Zealand.

New Zealand’s Third National Action Plan 2018 to 2020

The action plan expired before Commitment 11 was completed — work on this commitment is ongoing and expected to be completed in 2023.

Authoritative dataset of government organisations as open data for greater transparency — Commitment 11

Release and maintain an authoritative dataset of government organisations as open, machine-readable data to enhance the transparency of government structures to the public.

National Action Plan 2018 to 2020 — Open Government Partnership New Zealand

About the Open Government Partnership

• Started in 2011
• NZ joined in 2013
• Includes around 76 countries
• Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission (PSC) leads NZ’s work under the Open Government Partnership: Open Government – Public Service Commission.