Dear All,
I thought you might be interested in some progress being made on the disclosure of briefings to Ministers.
Government Ministers receive all kinds of briefings, of course, on different topics. However Ministers also receive regular weekly briefings on the work of the agencies or subject matter portfolios they are responsible for.
Until recently, there had not been many requests for these weekly briefings, as far as I am aware; requesters have tended to ask for disclosure of officials’ advice on particular issues instead. However, in the last few months some people have started to request copies of these weekly briefings. Unsurprisingly, some have been more forthcoming than others, but there does on balance seem to be a trend towards release of them, albeit with some redactions. Some examples:
Weekly briefings to the Minister for Conservation: https://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2018/03/worth-oia-ministerial-weekly-briefings.html
Weekly briefings to the Minister for Women: https://fyi.org.nz/request/7388-weekly-briefings-november-2017-january-2018#incoming-24806
Weekly briefings to the Minister for Energy and Resources: https://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2018/03/ministerial-briefings-energy-resources.html
The Minister for Conservation and Minister for Women are Green Party Ministers. The Minister for Energy and Resources is a Labour Party Minister.
More interesting still is the response on 19 April from the (Labour) Minister for the Environment. He refused a request for the weekly briefings he has received since taking office after the 2017 general election. However, this was not because he was of the view that they could all be withheld under the policy advice exemption. Instead, they were withheld under the provision for information that will soon be publicly available. The Minister told the requester:
"I take the position that Weekly Updates which are under three months old remain under active consideration. It is, however, important to me that this material is made publicly available once I have been able to make decisions on the material provided.
Because of this, I have asked officials to release my Weekly Updates once they are over three months old on the Ministry for the Environment website. On 11 May 2018 the Environment Weekly Updates I received between October 2017 and January 2018 will be made available on the Ministry for the Environment's website. Ministry for the Environment officials will be in touch with you to provide you with a link to this material.
Therefore, Iam formally refusing the part of your OIA which covers briefings between 26 October 2017 - 31 January 2018 under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act on the grounds that the material captured within your request will soon be publicly available. And I am refusing the part of your OIA which captures material produced after 31 January 2018 under section 9(2)(f)(iv) as this material remains under my active consideration.”
This decision to commit to regular proactive disclosure of these weekly briefings is a significant development. While the proposed three month delay before proactive publication occurs might seem too long for some, it is a very positive move, and will not prevent people from requesting more recent weekly briefings to the Minister in the meantime. They might be refused for one of the one of the withholding grounds found in the Official Information Act, or on the basis that they will soon be publicly available, but those decisions will be susceptible to appeal to the Ombudsman. I suspect that in any case, we may see the delay between receipt and publication becoming shorter over time. The Minister for the Environment’s response to the request is here [PDF], and the chain of request and intervening correspondence is here .
This development has been noticed by one of the country’s more active political bloggers. On Twitter, he asked the Minister responsible for Open Government Clare Curran, whether she would be following the Minister for the Environment’s lead in proactively releasing weekly briefings. Her response was that she would be, and indicated that other Ministers would also be following suit. This is very welcome news, and suggests that behind the scenes a policy decision has been made to implement this approach across government.
All good wishes,
Andrew Ecclestone