Under-resourcing transparency

The Ministry of Health is in my experience one of the worst performing government agencies when it comes to handling OIA requests. They unlawfully extend any non-trivial request, hyper-parse everything and adopt the most unhelpful and self-serving interpretation without consultation (and in violation of the principle of availability and the duty of assistance), and in the end are late anyway. Their Minister reportedly blames resourcing pressures for this. But as the PSA points out, resourcing is decided by the Minister:

However, the PSA's national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons told RNZ the minister should be taking responsibility instead.

"It shouldn't take the Ombudsman stepping in for Health NZ to provide information to the public, but really this does come back to the minister. He can't keep demanding savings and then blame officials when the impacts of cuts are felt," she said.

"Health NZ has lost over 2000 roles either through early exits, voluntary redundancies, or vacancies not being filled. This includes teams that support official information requests. They've lost critical expertise."

She said it was no wonder the public wanted information when the government was making such cuts, and the minister, his office, and health agencies should have seen it coming.

"This government is undermining the Official Information Act. It plays an absolutely critical role in enabling the participation of the people of New Zealand in public administration, but also in holding ministers and officials to account."

Its also worth noting that the courts have ruled (in relation to Corrections) that resource limitations do not justify failure to comply with statutory duties; if there are resource issues, then it is the chief executive's duty to reallocate resources so there are not. In the case of Corrections, the High Court ordered the chief executive personally to obey - raising the prospect of fine or jail if they do not. If government agencies keep making similar pleas when it comes to the OIA, then its time we took them to court and subjected them to similar orders.

Meanwhile, RNZ also quotes Labour's Carmel Sepuloni as blaming under-resourcing and cuts for OIA delays. So obviously, if she becomes Minister, she'll be ensuring that transparency is fully resourced, and that information is released expeditiously, and she'll resign if its not, right? I look forward to a public commitment from her, and all Labour's potential Ministers, on this.