It’s a grey grey world: disappearing government information

Roxanne MissinghamUniversity Library, Australian National UniversityPresentation at Where is the evidence? Policy, research and the rise of grey literature, National Library of Australia, Canberra 10 October 2012

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Government information

Types Purposes

Reports What has the agency done?Accountability Can be issue specific

White papers For consultation on policy

Green papers Policy announcements

Research Evidence base/open policy making

Guidelines Implementation/service delivery

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Some key developmentsYear Report/change

1964 Commonwealth Parliamentary Select Committee on Parliamentary and Government Publications report (Erwin report)

1997 Management of Government Information as a National Strategic Resource (Wainwright report)

1997 AGPS moves to NOIE

2006 Joint Committee on Publications Distribution of the Parliamentary Papers Series

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Year Report/change

2009 Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0

2010 Electronic distribution of the Parliamentary Papers Series

2010 FoI Act changes including the Information Publications Scheme

Establishment of Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

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Policy responsibilities include

• Attorney Generals Department• Department of Finance and Deregulation,

including AGIMO

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Towards an Australian Government Information PolicyPrinciples on open public sector information

1: Open access to information – a default position

2: Engaging the community

3: Effective information governance

4: Robust information asset management

5: Discoverable and useable information

6: Clear reuse rights

7: Appropriate charging for access

8: Transparent enquiry and complaints processes http://www.oaic.gov.au/publications/papers/issues_paper1_towards_australian_government_information_policy.pdf

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What has happened to government publishing?• Devolved responsibilities• Overall trend reduction in “publications” of

around 50% over the past decade (recorded in NBD)

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2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

Commonwealth government publications recorded in NBD

Tit

les

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One agency – a decade of change

• 2001 publications – where did online publications go?

On agency website29%

On another website (university, OECD)

19%

Pandora24%

No longer available online29%

Agency A: 2001 online publications loca-tions in 2012

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Agency in 2011• Consistent with figures from the NBD which show reduced publishing (NBD)

by about 50% from 2001 to 2011.  • Now majority are online.

2001 20110%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

Not online

Online

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Information publications scheme (IPS)

• specifies categories of information that must be published

• 2012 OAIC survey– 94% have an IPS plan– 95% have a senior officer with IPS

responsibilities– 85% publish on their website information

required under the FOI Act http://www.oaic.gov.au/publications/reports/IPS_survey_report.html

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But

• Accessibility: – 20% documents published under the IPS are in a

format (or multiple formats) which conform to WCAG 2.0 requirements,

– 30% most of their documents comply,– 44% some documents comply, and – 5% none of their documents comply

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Discoverability

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Issues: Long term access

– Agencies often have only the most up to date manual or guidance

– Around 10% of material is not online (see http://www.anao.gov.au/uploads/documents/2008-09_Audit_Report_37.pdf and this study)

– Directories - only latest information online– Machinery of government changes mean

website addresses change and documents are “archived” or lost

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Issues

• Metadata – how can we find information?– Gaps in metadata now

• Awareness– Parliamentary papers – strong knowledge of

standards – IPS - strong knowledge– Long term access and discovery less

• Data– A plateau?

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Challenges: finding

Top issues

• Transparency and accountability• accessibility • Discoverability (including metadata)• Long term access• getting leadership support for this cultural change.

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Developments

• News from the NLA - Pandora plans to harvest all Financial Management and Accountability Act Agencies

• Who cares about publications– Policy record– Evidence/transparency– Unpredicted – family history and more

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Questions

•  Do agencies have a common understanding that long term publicly accessible publications are important?

• Do we have an infrastructure that supports this?

• Do we have the right legal environment? • What can we do about the “dark age”?

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2013

• An election before 30 November 2013

• Machinery of government changes coming