Who am I?

My title says 'Manager, Communications & Records Management.' That means I am responsible for the Commission's internal and external communications and for records management and library services. Essentially, that means my focus in on how information flows in and out of the Commission and how effectively we manage that process...

Naturally, that begets an interest in information management across the system — which is what brings me here today.

My contact details are at the end of this presentation.

Where am I coming from?

The State Services Commission is one of three New Zealand Government central agencies (alongside Treasury and DPMC). We are the Government's lead advisor on the public management system. The State Services Commissioner, a statutory role, appoints and performance manages the chief executives of the other 34 public service departments.

Basically, we don't have much to do with service delivery, so we can spend time thinking about system-wide issues.

What am I going to talk about?

You can read the bullets...

I want to stress that this is not about software, or any sort of technology really. It is about policy settings, governance and accountability (but more on that later).

That is not to say that I won't be talking about FOSS — I will; but more for illustrative purposes.

Let me share an anecdote. During the recent G2009 negotiations, as we got closer to the pointy end (and some of you will be aware how that worked out for us) I had a rather illuminating exchange with a senior manager about our position. He was absolutely convinced that there was effectively no alternative but to accept the vendor's position. I pointed out that there were, in fact viable alternatives. His response?

We're not downloading anything from the Internet.

Similarly, given our current economic situation (our Treasury is forecasting Government deficits for the next 10-15 years), how in good conscience can we continue to spend millions of dollars every year on proprietary software when free alternatives exist?

In May 2007, I wrote about what I considered to be the five key principles for Govt 2.0

One of those principles was Open sourcing government. Now, two and a half years later, I admit that I got some of this wrong. Not drastically wrong; an error in scale more than anything else. I envisaged that APIs would address the issues sufficiently. That was something of an understatement. With the benefit of hindsight —and bearing in mind that government APIs are still, by and large, non-existent— this approach was myopically technical.

There are currently more than forty data sets on the Open Govt site, from central and local government agencies. These sets range from economic data provided by the Treasury, geospatial data, various sets of energy data and a collection of directories and registers.

The point to bear in mind as you scroll down the list, though, is that these sets represent a fraction of the data the Crown holds. This catalogue could easily extend to hundreds of pages...

Why doesn't it?

It's not about the technology. It's not about data quality. Or privacy. Or commercial sensitivity, or any of that stuff. That should all be dealt to as part of the everyday functioning of any competent administration. It is about accepting that we, the government, collect and manage this information on behalf of citizens and that it is our fundamental responsibility to make it available to them in a way that supports the creation of public and economic value.

This isn't an add-on, or a 'nice to do.' It's an integral part of our operating environment now.

Another important consideration is transparency. There are good reasons why security agencies use a lot of open source; they need to be able to see what they are getting. Citizens deserve exactly the same.

One of the first data sets we released was the Public Sector Directory. SSC released it in 2005 and, while it is not exactly groundbreaking, it does illustrate some of the points I am making.

There are some issues that must be thought through.

Licensing is one. Over the past couple of months we have been working with Creative Commons New Zealand to develop a licence to release government data. This will be launched shortly and will be known as the New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing Framework (NZGOALF). Basically, it means that non-personal data will be released under the most permissive commons' license — as, if you gave it even a cursory thought, indeed it should be...

Consideration also needs to be given to statutory obligations (for example, the Public Records Act and the Privacy Act) as well as security issues...

Let's consider a practical example. The government is considering changes to the way Inland Revenue administers the collection of student loans. They are proposing to move to an entirely web-based system. The forum is a way of engaging with those people who will be recipients of the service and determine how they can make it fit for purpose.

The site carries the (almost inevitable) disclaimer:

[...]We would like you to take part in this forum and let us know how the changes will affect you. We'll keep your comments in mind when we make formal recommendations to government ministers on the detail of the changes.

First, some background. IRD runs public consultations periodically – this isn't new business for them. Typically, however, they have received around 9 submissions — but it has been as low as 2 and as high as 15.

The forum, in the first three weeks that it was live, attracted 4500 visitors from 33 countries. More importantly, it generated 156 posts — and most of the ones I read were thoughtful and constructive. Inland Revenue separately received 26 traditional written submissions. See this article on the forum.

It's worth comparing that with the Police Review Wiki. The wiki was part of an innovative & varied communications strategy, including essay writing and debating competitions and the old standard, town halls: 80 public meetings over 8 weeks that drew 1200 New Zealanders. The Wiki was open for 8 days and drew 5,158 NZ visitors out of a total of 23,785 visits.

I said back at the beginning that this wasn't just about the software or the technology. So what is it about?

It's a lot about open source governance, but it is also about more than that. (Interestingly, the Police Act Review Wiki —to my chagrin— has made it on to the list of examples linked to from this page).

Co-production is also another term that is bandied about by bureaucrats. Peter Shergold presented on this topic in Wellington earlier this year:

He belives that government's can no longer operate on the assumption that the people it serves are 'customers,' as customers have a choice. He contends that we are here to serve citizens, and they best way to serve them is to ask them what it is they want — or, if they do not have a choice about the 'what,' how they would like to be served.

I think this is a solid foundation to start from; but it doesn't really capture the richness of open source. Open source is not limited to co-production; it includes the ability for people to go away and develop better solutions than public servants could ever hope to deliver. It's a hackneyed example, but the recent sale to MSNBC of Everyblock illustrates how community developed solutions can outstrip the capability (and in many cases, imagination) of bureaucracies.

It isn't possible to have a conversation about innovation in the public sector without someone piping up about risk.

And if I was a communications advisor, I could think of all the PR hazards produced by some new practice — like staff taking to official blogs to explain what they were doing and why and opening themselves up to challenge, debate and ridicule from anyone who cared to post a comment.

A former State Services Commissioner used to address this point directly and forcefully: never do anything that you would be ashamed of. (That is about judgement). He would go on to say; that aside, public servants should not be afraid of embarrassing themselves (and that speaks directly to our courage). Expecting that this will be easy, that it won't take courage and won't involve risk is delusional. Of course it will be risky. Managing risk is part of our job.

The public service has a risk adverse culture. Make it safe for us to make changes. warweary

Another aspect of this is to call for new models of accountability. I don't agree with that either. The accountability we have, to Ministers and the public is fine as it is. What we need is better business planning to make it clear what our accountabilities are (in terms of our outputs) and where, in some cases, they will be shared with NGOs or community groups.

When I see calls for a new model of accountability, I see swarms of very expensive consultants contraindicating that behaviour...

What we are seeing is a fundamental shift in the way human beings interact. It is our job to manage this change in such a way as to ensure that we —the government— remain both relevant to the people we serve and are able to deliver the sorts of services that meet their needs now and in the future. We won't be able to do that with ignorant statements about "downloading from the Internet." We won't be able to do it by continuing to do things the way we always have.

But you already now that.

I am convinced that, in our western democracies, there has never been a time when citizens have been as engaged with the democratic process as they are now. I'm not talking about turning up at the polls every three to four years, I'm talking about people and communities trying to constructively engage with public servants about policy development and service delivery.

I don't think we are ready yet; but we are moving in the right direction... However, if we are to truly transform government, we need to accelerate the rate of change and, if we think we do it without the contribution of the people we serve, we are doomed to fail. Fail ourselves, and fail the community.