Treasury leading the way with OIA
Transtasman reports:
The Treasury is trialling the publication of its responses to selected OIA requests. The proactive release of individuals requests follow on from material such as Budget papers and Briefings to Incoming Ministers being released in bulk fashion for some time. Initial OIA requests released range from the Debt Management Office’s replacement of its Matriarch IT system through to Govt funding of NZ America’s Cup Teams. The argument for release is since the work has already been done to respond to the request and compile the information it might as well be more widely released.
I’ve been pushing for this for several years. A lot of very interesting information is released under the OIA, but is never seen by the public except the requester. The FYI tool is a great private sector initiative which allows responses to be viewed if it is used.
But what I’d like to see is:
- Govt establishes a www.oia.govt.nz
- All substantive responses to an OIA request are uploaded to the site a week after they are sent to the requester
- Uploaded documents are tagged with subject and portfolios tags to allow easy browsing
Good to see Treasury heading down this route of proactive release. I hope it leads to other agencies following.