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APPENDIX I

State Services Commission Extract from Policy Framework for Government Held Information (1997)

Availability

i Government departments should make information available easily, widely and equitably to the people of New Zealand;

Coverage

ii Government departments should make the following information available on an increasingly electronic basis:

• all published material;
• all policies that could be released publicly;
• all information created or collected on a statutory basis (subject to commercial sensitivity and privacy considerations);
• indexes that departments have created to improve their processes;
• all forms that the public may be required to complete;
• corporate documentation in which the public would be interested.

Pricing

iii For pricing purposes:

Free dissemination of Government-held information is appropriate where:

• dissemination to a target audience is desirable for a public policy purpose; or
• a charge to recover the cost of dissemination is not feasible or not cost-effective.

Pricing to recover the cost of dissemination is appropriate where:

• there is no particular public policy reason to disseminate the information; and
• a charge to recover the cost of dissemination is both feasible and cost-effective.

Pricing to recover the cost of transformation is appropriate where:

• pricing to recover the cost of dissemination is appropriate; and
• there is an avoidable cost involved in transforming the information from the form in which it is held into a form preferred by the recipient, where it is feasible and cost-effective to recover in addition to the cost of dissemination.

Pricing to recover the full costs of information production and dissemination are appropriate where:

• the information is created for the commercial purpose of sale at a profit; and
• to do so would not breach the other pricing principles.

Ownership

iv Government held information, created or collected by any person employed or engaged by the Crown is a strategic resource available to the Government for public purposes, ie on behalf of the public;

Stewardship

v Government departments are stewards of Government held information, whose responsibility is to exercise and implement good information management;

Collection

vi Government departments should only collect information for specified public business or legislative purposes;

Copyright

vii Information created by departments is subject to Crown copyright but where wide dissemination is desirable, the Crown should permit use of its copyright subject to acknowledgement of source;

Preservation

viii Government held information should be preserved only where a public business need, legislative or policy requirement, or a historical or archival reason exists;

Quality

ix Government held information should be accurate, relevant, timely, consistent and collected without bias so that it is fit for the purposes to which it is put;

Integrity

x The integrity of Government held information will be achieved when:

• all guarantees and conditions are met;
• the principles are clear and communicated;
• any situation dealing with Government held information is handled openly and consistently;
• those affected are consulted on any changes;
• those charged as independent guardians of the public interest have confidence in the ability of departments to manage the information well;
• there are minimum exceptions to the principles.