Publish Archives' audits of Public Records Act compliance

The Public Records Act 2005 should be amended to require proactive publication on the website of Archives New Zealand of the audits they (or contractors) conduct of government agencies' compliance with the requirements of that Act. Archives NZ should also be required to publish, and present to Parliament its annual schedule for undertaking these audits. Archives NZ needs to be adequately funded to audit at least 10 central government departments per year.

It would be easy to measure the implementation of these changes.

Transparency, accountability and public participation cannot happen if government agencies do not properly the information and data they create, collect, store, and manage. At present, there is insufficient statutorily required openness on this issue, and the suspicion is that Archives is underfunded for the work and does not have the independence to publish the reports if it wanted to.

Good information management should be a core component of the All of Government ICT Strategy and Action Plan, and transparency and accountability of agencies' performance would drive improvements in this foundation behaviour.