PRINCIPLES

1    Availability

Government departments should make information available easily, widely and equitably to the people of New Zealand (except where reasons preclude such availability as specified in legislation).

2     Coverage

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

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

3     Pricing   

a       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 cost-effective

b       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.

c       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.

d       Pricing to recover the full costs of information production and dissemination is 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.

4     Ownership

Government-held information, created or collected by any person employed or engaged by the Crown is a strategic resource 'owned' by the Government as a steward on behalf of the public.

5     Stewardship

Government departments are stewards of Government-held information, and it is their responsibility to implement good information management.

6     Collection

Government departments should only collect information for specified public policy, operational business or legislative purposes.

7     Copyright

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

8      Preservation

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

9     Quality

The key qualities underpinning Government-held information include accuracy, relevancy, timeliness, consistency and collection without bias so that the information supports the purposes for which it is collected.

10    Integrity

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

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

11    Privacy

The principles of the Privacy Act 1993 apply.