National FOI Metrics-What you had to say
Further in the series- Issues raised in Submissions on Draft National Action Plan
Commitment 3.2 Understand the use of freedom of information
From the PM&C round up:
Justin Warren PivotNine (consultancy)
Applaud general principles, but urge caution when designing the metrics. Take time to consider how a perverse or obstructionist actor may choose to interpret them (e.g. frequently useful info should not require a request under FOI to be published – but a change to greater transparency may see a drop in the number of FOI requests).
Jack Mahoney OGP Support Unit
Milestone 1 could be more specific about how will agree on the metrics. Will there be expert / multi-stakeholder input?
Dr Madeleine Roberts
It is unclear how this commitment benefits the public.
Natasha Molt Law Council of Australia
Supports the commitment. Recommends that:
• A stand alone Freedom of Information Commissioner should be appointed without delay; and
• The objectives should include ensuring that the functions of educational and policy work and the monitoring of the FOI Act have a stable statutory and administrative basis and are adequately funded.
Henare Degan
Nice that this commitment is quite specific.
Add specific ways of how awareness will be raised of access to information rights would improve this commitment. Having clear goals of what that means would be even better, e.g. having a specific goal of increasing FOI requests by a certain number or percentage.
Luke Bacon
Great that this commitment lists some of the specific metrics that will be published by agencies overseeing each FOI jurisdiction.
The 2014/15 fin year data should be published as part of that milestone, not just collected and “validated”.
This project should be aiming for as close to real time data collection as possible to be efficient.