Posts by papango
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OnPoint: Some of My Best Friends are Consultants, in reply to Keith Ng,
That doesn't surprise me. I've seen a variety of interpretations of what will be included in 'contractor and consultant'. Few of which have any logic or consistency behind them. It probably depends on who answers to OIA or select committee questions and what they decide on the day. That's one of the reasons that figuring out if the cuts have saved money is so hard.
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OnPoint: Some of My Best Friends are Consultants, in reply to Keith Ng,
It should be in the evidence from the agencies and the questions you want are 16, 17 and (particularly) 18 (which gives the details for every contractor or consultant). I hate the parliament website so I usually just Google 'financial review' and the name of the department. There's probably a better way.
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Select committees ask departments for information about contractors and consultants. How many and total cost is required for every department's yearly financial review. Those numbers exist.
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Hard News: A fiction of unalloyed darkness, in reply to 3410,
Possibly. Alternatively, one could say that if it's billed as part fiction, then don't be surprised if it's part fiction.
The fiction parts of TAL are usually really clearly labelled as fiction. It's not a case where stories are a mix of fact and fiction, each one is either fact or fiction and is introduced as such.
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Speaker: Properly Public: It's our information, in reply to B Jones,
It's worth noting that these documents, even when they're only internal, are invisible to the kind of electronic file searches public servants do when they're answering a big OIA. If they're also filed in Admin or Miscellaneous with a name like report.doc, they'll never be seen again.
This is pretty much the reasoning behind the introduction of the regular (every organisation, every five to ten years) audits of complaince with the Public Records Act being undertaken by Archives NZ. This was announced in 2007 and I believe the audits are starting this year. And you wouldn't believe the wailing and gnashing of teeth that took place after people were told to get their filing in order ('you may take our lives, but you'll never take our 'Other Issues - Misc.' folder'). Often from the same people who show up at my desk weeping tears of gratitude that we can locate a copy of something they 'filed' six months ago.
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Speaker: Properly Public: It's our information, in reply to nzlemming,
Good point about the churnalism and declination to pay. But I'm not convinced that increasing charges would be good for transparency.
It absolutley wouldn't. A lot of OIAs are made by students and the interested public. That is, not by jounalists or people with a professional interest, but just by New Zealanders who want to know. Some of them don't even know they're using the Act, they just ring or write in wanting to know things. I think fees would dissuade people from asking and that would not be good.
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Speaker: Properly Public: It's our information, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Meanwhile, I remain unconvinced that a high volume of OIA requests from media outlets or Opposition parties fail to meet the “due particularity” test of section 12(2) of the relevant act unless they’re randomly generated word salad.
This is my experience, also. Although I have had to deal with 'any notable incidents in the last 12 months' from a journlist researching (that's probably the wrong verb) an end of year wrap up article, and, while at an enforcement agency, 'all emails on drugs' (sure, no problem, you back your shipping containers up to the side of the bulding and we'll just shovel the info out the window). And I am currently dealing with a journalist who wants 'emails to/from the Minister's office over a six month period'. They tend to be the minority. Party research units are actually really good to deal with, because they tend to know a bit about the machinery of government so they're usually asking the right department the right question. And they know how the OIA works.
I doubt anyone goes into the public service dreaming of spending their lives processing OIA requests.
Perhaps not. But there are a fair number of OIA and Privacy Act enthusiasts tucked away in dusty corners of government. It's not a sexy job, I've been told to my face by colleagues that it's all pointless and pedantic. I've worked for Ministers who openly disdained the OIA and the people who try to make it work. But I like it, and I know I'm not the only one.
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Speaker: Properly Public: It's our information, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And just as a matter of interest, I’d like to see a breakdown of how many of these so-called “fishing expeditions” don’t come from journalists at all but opposition party research units.
Without wanting to sound facetious, you could always just ask. I'm a civil servant working with OIAs (and BIMS) and I've answered questions from journalists and others (you don't have to tell us who you are or why you want the info) who have asked for the information about what OIAs we get, who from, how they were answered and how long each one took. The requester agreed for us to withhold the names of people, but we were happy to provide the organisations. If pushed we probably would have released the names, but most of those who didn't list an organisation were just regular New Zealanders exercising their right to the info.
From my own experience, written PQ's are where the reaserch units go fishing. Take a look at Trevor Mallard's dump on 21 December and tell me if you think he's going to make any use at all of that information, or did he just think it would annoy Ministers (it doesn't, they're on holiday, I'm here but it's my job and they pay me for it, and I'm taking my holiday in March to go to a wedding). Journalists (not all) tend to ask a long list of broad questions when they are looking for a story.
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Bebe.
