UNCLASSIFIED Ac t Wednesday 14th December 2.30-5.30pm, Premier House 19 82 Revisiting the protections for good government under the Official Information Act Objective of the session io n To discuss current practice and future proposals for balancing the protections for the confidentiality of officials and ministers’ advice and for free and frank opinions under the Official Information Act with its purpose of progressively opening up official information. at Invitees Affiliation Andrew Kibblewhite Chief Executive, DPMC (Chair) Judge Peter Boshier Chief Ombudsman Peter Hughes State Services Commissioner Una Jagose Solicitor General Nicola White Author of Free and Frank: Making the Official Information Act 1982 work better Emeritus Professor John Burrows Lead on the Law Commission’s 2012 review of the Official Information Act Bridget Hewson O ffi ci al In fo rm Name Rajesh Chhana Ministry of Justice e Deputy CE, Policy, DPMC er Antonia Di Maio th Anneliese Parkin Deputy Ombudsman Cabinet Office nd Rachel Hayward Office of the Ombudsman U DPMC Tania Warburton DPMC Mary Slater SSC R el ea se Charlotte Denny d Observers 1 FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES – NOT GOVERNMENT POLICY UNCLASSIFIED Timing Session Lead 2.15pm 2.30pm Coffee on arrival 2.30pm 2.40pm Introductions and welcome Andrew Kibblewhite and Judge Boshier 2.40pm 3.00pm Free and frank advice and the relationship between Ministers and Officials Andrew Kibblewhite 3.00pm 3.45pm The policy process and the effective conduct of public affairs 0 Examples of advice at different stages in a policy process 0 What are the consequences of release? 0 What protection is appropriate? How do we balance the effective conduct of public affairs and the public?s participation in the making of policies and laws? Round-table discussion 3.45pm 3.50pm Short break 3.50pm 4.10pm Building open and trustworthy Peter Hughes government leading OIA responsiveness in the State sector - the role of the State Services Commission 4.10pm 4.25pm The Ombudsman?s draft guidance on Judge Boshier sections and 4.25pm 4.45pm The Law Commission?s view of Professor John sections and Burrows 4.45pm - 5.10pm Improving the operation of the Act 0 What role could clearer rules and Nicola White binding precedent play in providing certainty and consistency in the application of the Act? followed by round-table discussion 5.10pm 5.30pm Conclusions and wrap-up Andrew Kibblewhite and Judge Boshier FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES NOT GOVERNMENT POLICY 19 82 IN CONFIDENCE Minute of the roundtable on revisiting the protections for good government under the Official Information Act Ac t Wednesday 14th December 2.30-5.30pm, Premier House Participants io n Andrew Kibblewhite, Judge Peter Boshier, Peter Hughes, Una Jagose, Nicola White, Emeritus Professor John Burrows, Bridget Hewson, Rajesh Chhana, Anneliese Parkin, • rm at Antonia Di Maio, Rachel Hayward, Charlotte Denny, Tania Warburton, Mary Slater. Participants noted that there is considerable uncertainty about the interpretation and In fo application of the ‘good government’ provisions – sections 9 (2)(f)(iv) and 9 (2)(g)(i)of the OIA. Uncertainty about what can be withheld under these grounds can be damaging for good decision-making. Some participants felt that over time it has had a It was noted that the original architects of the Act had intended for there to be a rule ffi • ci al chilling effect on the provision of free and frank advice. O making body to define and review categories of information for the purpose of access and protection. The Danks committee considered that it would be undesirable for the th e application of sections 9(2)(f)(iv) and 9(2)(g)(i) to have to be reasoned through in Participants agreed that decision makers and requestors would benefit from clearer nd • er every case on a de novo basis. guidance on the interpretation and application of these provisions, including U references to precedent. The Office of the Ombudsman commenced a major project in 2015 to develop R el ea se d • comprehensive new guidance materials in response to the recommendations 1-7 and 106 of the Law Commission’s 2012 review of the OIA, which the Government supported and Parliament agreed to fund. IN CONFIDENCE • This will include the preparation of guidance on sections 9(2)(f)(iv) and 9(2)(g)(i) of the OIA. The Office undertook to consult (as part of its wider consultation) participants on this forthcoming guidance. The Head of State Services noted that compliance with the Act is an important 19 82 • foundation for a trusted public service. He said that what chief executives would most benefit from is having confidence in what can and cannot be protected by these provisions. He noted that uncertainty can lead to a risk-averse approach. As part of Ac t the Commission’s work to improve compliance SSC will provide a focus of expertise and advice on the Act for government agencies. That will include encouraging R el ea se d U nd er th e O ffi ci al In fo rm at io n proactive release and supporting improved agency capability. se d U nd er th e O ffi ci al I nf o rm at io n Ac t1 98 2 Personal email exchange with administrative emails setting up date. R el ea On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 3:36 AM, Charlotte Denny [DPMC] s9(2)(a) wrote: [IN-CONFIDENCE] Hi Nicola, s9(2)(a) DPMC is planning to pull together a small group of legal and public policy experts (including the Ombusdman) to discuss Personal email working in practice in protecting free and frank advice. We?d be very keen for you to be part of the discussion, so could schedule it around your availability. As a second best, we could arrange video conference facilities. Best wishes Charlotte c} ?0 Charlotte Denny .ix (QC) The information contained in this email the attention of the intended recipient only and is not necessarily he ot?cial view or communication of the Department 0 nister and Cab'net If you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, copy or distribute this message orthe ian you have received his message in error, please destroythe email and notify the Department of Prime Minister and Cab'net administrative emails setting up date. Qp Not relevant to your request el R d se ea er nd U e th O al I ci ffi rm nf o at io n t1 98 2 Ac would suit for me to call? Best wishes Charlotte Charlotte Denny A . Department of Prine Minister and Cabinet The In Its emai messageisformeattentimofthe? or communication of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. If his sender immediately. the intended rec'pientyou mustnotdisdose.copy 0 Personal email exchange with administrative emails 006?} P A G E 1 Mastering the art of free and frank advice Andrew Kibblewhite, Head of the Policy Profession 19 82 Speech to the Government Legal Network 19 August A politician in the UK recently suggested people are tired of listening to experts. Some commentators looking at events in recent months in the UK and the US have suggested that Ac t we are entering a period of ‘post-fact’ politics. As someone whose professional identity is grounded in the importance of facts, evidence n and expertise, I find these trends worrying. Looking at this audience - full of experts - I’m sure at io I’m not the only one. rm Today I want to talk to you about why deep, evidence-based, apolitical advice matters more than ever for elected decision-makers in an increasingly messy, complex world. I’m going to In fo explore what free and frank advice means – as well as some other F words that describe good advice. And I’m going to start by talking about the role that such advice plays in the ci al relationship between ministers and officials. I’m not suggesting that officials are the only experts who advise ministers, or that we are the ffi only voices they should listen to – far from it. But our advice is important for a few reasons. O First, we are trained in how to offer analytically robust, practical, apolitical advice to ministers on achieving their goals. Our responsibility is to seek the best outcomes, not the political th e advantage of a party, faction or particular sector of society. er Added to that, the best advisors build relationships with stakeholders inside and outside of decision-making circles so we are well informed about how different choices will play out in nd the real world. And we are a professional, permanent cadre of advisors. We’ve seen many policies implemented before, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. We’ve learned U lessons when policies implemented against our advice have succeeded and policies we’ve se d backed have failed. ea And finally, we have the unique advantage of providing advice from the privileged position of R el being on the inside. We see the shifting sands that governments are navigating, how much room they have to manoeuvre, how stakeholders are reacting, what impact the media narrative is having on their choices, and we have the chance to position our advice so it can be most effective. For those reasons, a neutral public service is one of the strengths of our system of parliamentary democracy: it combines deep expert advice with democratic responsiveness. P A G E 2 Ministers, accountable to the public, are responsible for setting policy and direction, advised by a loyal and continuing public service that provides robust advice on how to achieve the But we can always do our job better, and that’s one of the reasons I’m proud to be 19 82 government’s goals. sponsoring the Policy Project in my role as Head of the Policy Profession for the public service. The Policy Project is a collaborative effort with policy leaders and practitioners Ac t across departments to lift our game as policy professionals. Its first tools, three frameworks looking at organisational capability, policy skills and policy quality, will be launched next week io n by the Prime Minister. If you want a sneak preview of the frameworks, check out the Policy Project website. I hope rm at you’ll find them a useful how-to guide to some of the areas I’m going to talk about today. In fo Relationship between ministers and officials The architecture of the relationship between ministers and officials is set out in various pieces of legislation and documents like the Cabinet Manual. The introduction to the Cabinet ci al Manual describes the role of an independently appointed, apolitical public service working for an Executive accountable to Parliament, which is turn accountable to the public, through the ffi ballot box. O This relationship can seem paradoxical. How is it possible for public servants to be loyal and e responsive to the current government, while being politically neutral and retaining the th capability to serve future governments, as required by the State Sector Act? This balancing er act depends on a clear division of labour and authority between ministers and officials. nd Ministers are responsible for deciding the policy direction and priorities for their departments. Our responsibility, as officials, is to give our best, evidence based advice about how our U minister can achieve his or her goals. se d Good advisors understand their ministers’ priorities and are aware of the political context within which the minister is working. But as I will explain in more detail, being responsive to R el ea the minister’s priorities shouldn’t slide into second guessing what the minister wants to hear. At the heart of the constitutional conventions and the Cabinet Manual guidance about the relationship are some core values: trust, confidence, and respect. In my experience, ministers of all political persuasions value and trust public service advisors who display a few essential qualities. P A G E 3 It starts with listening carefully to ministers, being responsive to their priorities, giving them honest, unspun, evidence based advice, understanding the political context in which they are 19 82 working, while being apolitical, and finally, protecting the confidentiality of the relationship. Building trust with ministers means being careful about disagreeing with the government’s direction in public statements. It’s our job to give our free and frank advice to ministers in Ac t private not in public. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have a role in informing public debate on complex issues. Departments contribute to public debate by providing objective information, statistics, io n research and reports highlighting issues, such as the Treasury’s Statement on the Long at Term Fiscal Position, or the Ministry of Health’s annual publication on the state of public health. Indeed, I think we can go further in publishing robust research and analysis of key In fo rm issues facing the nation. But advisors have to be careful to ensure that their candid advice is kept confidential. The commentators who clamour for officials to provide their free and frank advice in public ci al misunderstand the constitutional position of the public service. When taking part in public discussions of policy issues, I think we should follow the advice of ffi a wise former Treasury Secretary in Australia, Ken Henry, who said officials must bear in O mind that “the objective is to make it easier for the government of the day to do what needs e to be done. The objective is not to make the minister’s life more difficult.”1 th Free and Frank, and other features of great advice er Let’s turn now to the art of free and frank advice. As I’ve noted in previous speeches on this nd topic, the ‘free’ in free and frank isn’t the same thing as free speech. As a public servant you are entitled to your opinions, but it’s not part of your day job to share that with anyone, U anywhere. The free part of free and frank means that you offer your best advice freely to d decision makers, without withholding any key evidence or information. se Free also means we shouldn’t second-guess what ministers will want to do – as Minister R el ea English puts it, “tell Ministers what they need to hear, not what you think they want to hear.” Frank means we don’t pull our punches with ministers. We are honest about where we think the pitfalls and risks are. But I also noted that frank doesn’t mean foolish – as in any 1 Henry,K. (September, 2007) Challenges confronting economic policy advisers, Address to the Curtin Public Policy Forum, Perth P A G E 4 relationship there are smarter ways of saying things – giving the hard truths in the most constructive and palatable way possible. 19 82 And we shouldn’t be in the business of wasting taxpayers’ money with advice that is free, frank, and fruitless. Sometimes ministers rule out options in a way which makes it clear that it would be a waste of time raising them again. Ac t Sometimes the art of being a great policy advisor is all in the timing – knowing when the environment a minister is facing has changed substantially, and the previously unthinkable n has now become the possible. Great advisors are savvy about the political context. Deciding io when and how to give ministers challenging advice is one of the most difficult things officials have to do. That’s why it tends to be a role for more senior and experienced officials who rm at have earned the minister’s trust and confidence. Building trust takes time. This brings me to something else I have touched on in previous speeches – whether there In fo has been a reduction in free and frank advice. I don’t think so, at least when it comes to oral advice. I’ve been in plenty of meetings with senior officials and ministers where the ci al conversation and the advice from officials has been free, frank and robust. And skilfully offered. ffi I also don’t think there was ever a golden age of free and frank advice – certainly not over O the nearly 30 years of my career. The picture has always been mixed and there have always th e been opportunities to improve. I would say though that one thing I have noticed in my time in the public service, is that less er is written down than it used to be. This has been true over several administrations – Nicola nd White noted it in her 2007 book on the Official Information Act.2 And this trend is not unique to New Zealand either. Peter Shergold, the former head of DPM&C in Australia notes the U same issue over there.3 se d To fulfil our role as ministers’ trusted advisors, I don’t think oral advice is enough. Where ministers are taking significant decisions, our free and frank conversations need to be ea complemented with written advice. This is not because we are writing for posterity rather expose the complexities of the trade-offs ministers face. R el than the minister, but because the written record is by its nature richer and more able to 2 White, N. (2007) Free and Frank: Making the Official Information Act 1982 work better, Institute of Policy Studies, Wellington 3 Shergold, P. (August, 2015) Learning from Failure, Commonwealth of Australia P A G E 5 It is more accurate, more considered, less likely to be misunderstood and ultimately serves ministers better in making their decisions. Receiving advice in writing gives ministers the chance to reflect before they make decisions. It also upholds good decision-making 19 82 processes and reduces the risk of losing a judicial review. The consequences of poor decision making can be severe. In the Australian case which Shergold examines, policy and design failures in a government home insulation programme Ac t led to the deaths of four young men. Incomplete records meant it was impossible to tell if ministers had been adequately advised about the risks. io n Don’t misunderstand me – I am not saying that every conversation in a minister’s office at should be written down or supported by fully documented detailed advice. Exploratory discussions with ministers often work best when supported by conversation starters which rm sketch out ideas and describe the landscape. But when it comes to taking significant In fo decisions, it is my strong view that advice should be provided in writing. This point reinforces brings me to one of the other F words which characterise robust advice ci al - Full. Great advice brings all the available evidence and multiple perspectives together to provide a comprehensive look into real-world problems. Great policy advice is much more than a collection of facts and data – it is advice that helps ministers navigate the complex O ffi world we live in. e That means giving ministers the full range of options on how they might best achieve the th outcomes they are seeking and an honest appraisal of the relative merits of those options. It’s only if the written advice is free, frank and full that we can be sure that decisions are er made with full knowledge of the facts. nd There are few more F words worth touching on. Without Favour – it is essential that advice U should be politically neutral and not beholden to particular interest groups or particular sectors of society or the economy. That means we need to understand much more deeply se d and objectively the impact on stakeholders of policy change. ea Fearless – policy advice needs to be fearless, frightening even. It needs to be bold in striving R el for new and different ways of doing things, and not to hold back from presenting scary options to ministers. Anything that is new, by definition, doesn’t come with a whole lot of evidence of past experience. And that carries risks. But we need to be confident to take those risks or we will not be innovative. Advice should also be Fallible – perhaps an unexpected F word. When we try innovative new ways of designing policy, we are inevitably sometimes going to fail. But ministers would P A G E 6 rather have less-than-perfect advice based on our best evidence and assumptions that acknowledges what we don’t know and, crucially, how we judge whether the policy is working. We should state up front what we think will happen and the feedback loops we will 19 82 set up to evaluate whether it is working. If we don’t evaluate what we are doing, we can’t learn from its success or failure, and we Ac t won’t continue to build on our knowledge of what works. Future – policy advice should also keep an eye not just on the current landscape but on at io Decision making moves much faster than it did even a decade ago. n what’s ahead. Keeping an eye on the future is one of the hardest tasks for any government. One of the ways officials support ministers is by offsetting the bias towards the now with a rm focus on the future. Public service officials should be thinking about policy questions that are In fo important as well as urgent, and be providing advice to ministers on how to avoid closing off future options that might negatively affect future generations. ci al I get frustrated when I hear people say that policy advisors should not proactively help ministers shape the agenda. The best policy advisors do exactly that. They earn that opportunity by showing that they understand ministers’ priorities, and by presenting good ffi ideas. Earning ministers’ trust and confidence enables us to play our part in helping them O shape the future. th e Policy Stewardship We now have a legislated responsibility to provide a ‘voice for the future’ in today’s decisions. er Parliament formally recognised the responsibility public service chief executives have to nd advise on future issues in the 2013 amendments to the State Sector Act which added stewardship to their responsibilities. The Act defines stewardship as the “active planning and U management of medium- and long-term interests, along with associated advice.” d Section 32 of the Act charges each chief executive with ensuring that their department has se the “capability and capacity to offer free and frank advice to successive governments.” The ea expectation is that we need to be responsive to current ministers and their objectives, as well R el as transparently investing in capability to advise future ministers and governments that may have a different policy agenda. Stewardship requires us to invest in the research and analysis on issues that are not priorities today, but could bite us in the future. In my view, this involves building the capability to provide deep and robust advice on the issues just over the horizon and the problems that can fall between agency siloes. P A G E 7 However, it doesn’t mean that the public service has a separate agenda from ministers. 19 82 What it means in practice for most departments is that there will be a range of issues officials need to be across because they are important strategic challenges. These are the kinds of issues where even if the minister doesn’t see them as a priority right now, he or she, or a Ac t future minister is going to need an answer some day. The degree of investment in each issue will depend in part on the degree of ministerial n interest. But there needs to be a base level of investment even on issues which the minister io does not consider a priority so that if and when they change their mind, or indeed when the at minister changes, we are ready to advise. rm And I note that the section of the Act where stewardship has been placed is about the CE’s responsibilities to their current minister. This describes the constitutional reality of the CE– In fo Minister relationship. Clearly we can’t ignore the minister’s current needs and invest all our thinking capability in advising on tomorrow’s problems. We need to undertake this ci al stewardship role in full view of the minister of the day and be prepared to discuss the tradeoffs we are making. ffi My expectation as head of policy profession, is that CEs will engage constructively with their O ministers on the amount of investment that they are putting into thinking about future risks e and opportunities. Some departments already devote considerable resource to thinking th about different scenarios and how to future proof investments in a changing world. Other er departments will need to invest more in strategic capability and policy thinking. nd I mentioned at the beginning of this talk that one of the core qualities ministers expect of advisors is protecting the confidentiality of the relationship. I want to briefly touch on some of U the tensions between our role as ministers’ confidential advisors, and the opening up of se d public information which is one of the goals of the Official Information Act. I should say up front that New Zealanders can be justifiably proud of how the Act has opened ea up the workings of government over the years. The Act has three purposes: progressively R el increasing the availability of official information; providing for the proper access by each person to official information relating to themselves; and protecting official information to the extent consistent with the public interest and the preservation of personal privacy. Compared with freedom of information rules in similar countries such as the UK, Australia and Canada, our system is very much at the transparent end of the scale. In those countries, P A G E 8 entire classes of documents, Cabinet documents for example, are excluded from freedom of information requests. 19 82 We have no such blanket ban here and that is a good thing because it has resulted in New Zealand having much greater transparency of government decisions. The trend to proactively publish Cabinet papers that set out the decision making rationale, as with the publication of Budget papers, or the Performance Improvement Framework (PIF) reports, or the Treasury’s Ac t major projects monitoring reports all support a robust, public policy debate. n More transparency almost always improves the conditions for democracy to flourish. Almost at io always. I choose these words carefully. The last purpose of the Act, protecting information to the extent consistent with the public rm interest, is sometimes overlooked. It should not be. The Act is clear that there is a public In fo interest in protecting information when its release could threaten the provision of free and frank expression of opinions between ministers and officials. ci al As the Head of the Policy Profession I have a deep interest in protecting the space for officials to provide hard hitting, free, frank, robust and well-documented advice. Often this means that much of the wide ranging advice provided to support Ministers in their O ffi deliberations should be kept confidential. e If the free and frank advice officials provide to support Ministerial deliberations were routinely th released, it would pre-empt some options. Officials would be less likely to provide innovative blue skies ideas, which, if prematurely released, could be shot down before we have a er chance to turn them into something more robust. nd Officials don’t want to become the story – it doesn’t help us to loyally serve future U governments if we’ve become part of the political contest. So the threat of premature release risks pressuring officials to soften our advice, avoid controversy, or not expose risks. This se d does representative democracy a disservice. ea I think it would be a mistake if the progressive opening up of official information were to R el further erode the private space that officials need for robust debate with ministers. As Peter Shergold, said in his report, it is imperative that governments be allowed a measure of confidentiality in the policy-making process. “Without the free and uninhibited exchange of views between ministers and senior public servants, good public policy is jeopardised.” P A G E 9 Uncertainty about what can and can’t be withheld has not helped the relationship between ministers and officials. And it doesn’t help build trust in the operation of the Act or in 19 82 government more generally. I welcome moves by Judge Boshier to publish more guidance on the trickiest provisions of the Act. I think this provides a good starting point for a richer conversation between office of the Ombudsman and senior officials immersed in the day to day challenges of balancing the Ac t Act’s objectives. n We could revisit Nicola White’s 2007 suggestion of a centre of expertise in the central io agencies that will work with the Ombudsman to help clear up some of the more ambiguous at parts of the Act. I think this could be done without losing the flexibility that is one of the Act’s rm strengths. In fo Conclusion As I said at the beginning, I think our responsibilities as advisors are more important than ever in an increasingly complex environment. The characteristics of good advice – and of ci al good advisors – will be valuable now and in the future. My view is that we have great rules and infrastructure in place to make the partnership between ministers and officials work for O ffi the betterment of all New Zealanders. e But what counts is being able to put those rules into practice. Senior leaders have to set and th reiterate clear expectations about what it means to be a great policy advisor, and to act as er exemplars. The Policy Project frameworks are a great foundation. nd I’ll leave you with a final thought. I’ve described offering ministers free and frank advice as an important and challenging part of an advisors’ role. It’s also one of the most satisfying parts. U In my experience, strong ministers welcome robust advice that points out the pitfalls as well as the opportunities in any course of action. Moreover, they go back to officials who offer it, se d even when the conversations have been difficult. To be sought out for your advice is one of R el ea the most valuable and satisfying experiences you can have in your public service career. From: To: Peter Hughes [SSC] Andrew Kibblewhite [DPMC]; Anneliese Parkin [DPMC]; Michael Webster [DPMC]; Charlotte Denny [DPMC]; Sally Washington [DPMC]; Anne Shaw [DPMC] RE: Free and frank discussion again Thursday, 8 September 2016 6:42:47 p.m. image001.jpg Subject: Date: Attachments: t1 98 2 Cheers Andrew. It would be good to discuss this at OSC.  Peter at io n Ac Peter Hughes Head of State Services - State Services Commissioner State Services Commission DDI: s9(2)(g)(ii) Fax: +64 4 495 6686 s9(2)(g)(ii) rm www.ssc.govt.nz newzealand.govt.nz nf o Sent with Good Work (www.good.com) ffi ci al I From: Andrew Kibblewhite [DPMC s9(2)(g)(ii) Date: Thursday, 08 Sep 2016, 1:54 PM To: Peter Hughes [SSC] s9(2)(g)(ii) Anneliese Parkin [DPMC] s9(2)(g)(ii) Michael Webster [DPMC] s9(2)(g)(ii) Charlotte Denny [DPMC] s9(2)(g)(ii) , Sally Washington [DPMC] s9(2)(g)(ii) , Anne Shaw [DPMC] s9(2)(g)(ii) Subject: FW: Free and frank discussion again th e O [IN-CONFIDENCE]   Apparently was a constructive conversation. I will follow up with Judge Boshier.   U s9(2)(g)(ii) nd er From: Judge Peter Boshier s9(2)(g)(ii) Sent: Thursday, 8 September 2016 12:02 p.m. To: Andrew Kibblewhite [DPMC] s9(2)(g)(ii) Cc: Bridget Hewson s9(2)(g)(ii) se d Subject: Free and frank discussion again   Dear Andrew   Minister Brownlee wrote to me asking me to better explain this Office’s project on proper compliance with the Official Information Act. I decided that we should make an offer to meet with the Minister and we did so this morning. One of your DPMC staff was also present.   In fact, most of the discussions centred around this issue of free and frank discussion and when our Office might or might not recommend release of material.   The discussion so much centred on matters that you and I discussed personally but which were also the subject of our respective papers and speeches. ea el R ; Andrew McCaw al I nf o rm at io n Ac t1 98 2   But I am left with some unease. Unless I am mistaken, there is a perception that our Office wants everything released. The Minister approached this meeting in quite a businesslike fashion, and I think the reason for that was a genuine perception that the rules have changed and that we are pushing for a wider range of Ministerial advice and briefings to be released. I am genuinely worried about this perception.   I have decided to write to you about it because I hope, when you get a briefing from what was discussed at this morning's meeting, you too will feel reassured that the rules have not changed at all. In fact I hope that my paper is a careful restatement of the position.   Perceptions are everything, and I interpret that the Minister’s wish to really explore this area fully, as a genuine moving of the boundaries on our part giving rise to some lack of confidence. Or am I being too sensitive?   I accept that I have spoken publicly on a range of issues and exhorted proper compliance with the Act. But never have I endeavoured to encroach into a change in relation to this important and sensitive area of security and free and frank discussion.   It makes it all the more important that we pursue the discussion group s9(2)(g)(ii) have suggested.   Best regards Peter Boshier O ffi ci Judge Peter Boshier Chief Ombudsman Office of the Ombudsman Tari o te Kaitiaki Mana Tangata   th e DDI s9(2)(g)(ii) Phone 04 473 9533 Fax 04 471 2254 s9(2)(g)(ii) www.ombudsman.parliament.nz Email PO Box 10152, Level 7, SolNet House, 70 The Terrace, Wellington nd er   R el ea se d U   IMPORTANT: The information contained in this email may be confidential or legally privileged. It is intended solely for the recipient or recipients named in this message. Please note that if you are not the intended recipient you are not authorised to use, copy or distribute the email or any information contained in it. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately and destroy the original message and any attachments.   IMPORTANT: The information contained in this email may be confidential or legally privileged. It is intended solely for the recipient or recipients named in this message. Please note that if you are not the intended recipient you are not authorised to use, copy or distribute the email or any information contained in it. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately and destroy the original message and any attachments. From: To: Subject: Date: Attachments: Karen Carter s9(2)(a) at io n Ac Good afternoon Nicola   Please find attached a letter from Andrew Kibblewhite and Judge Peter Boshier for your information.   Kind regards Karen   t1 98 2 Letter from Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Tuesday, 25 October 2016 4:39:35 p.m. image001.jpg 25102016163827.pdf ffi ci al I nf o rm Karen Carter Executive Assistant to Judge Peter Boshier, Chief Ombudsman Office of the Ombudsman Tari o te Kaitiaki Mana Tangata   DDI s9(2)(a) Phone 04 473 9533 Mob s9(2)(a) Fax 04 471 2254 Email s9(2)(a) www.ombudsman.parliament.nz PO Box 10152, Level 7, SolNet House, 70 The Terrace, Wellington   nd er th e O   IMPORTANT: The information contained in this email may be confidential or legally privileged. It is intended solely for the recipient or recipients named in this message. Please note that if you are not the intended recipient you are not authorised to use, copy or distribute the email or any information contained in it. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately and destroy the original message and any attachments.     R el ea se d U IMPORTANT: The information contained in this email may be confidential or legally privileged. It is intended solely for the recipient or recipients named in this message. Please note that if you are not the intended recipient you are not authorised to use, copy or distribute the email or any information contained in it. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately and destroy the original message and any attachments. DEPARTMENT a oft/18 PRIME MINISTER and CABINET Fairness for all 21 October 2016 Nicola White via email Dear Nicola We would like to invite you to a joint round table on the effective operation of the good government grounds of the Official Information Act 1982 (Sections and We?ve begun a conversation intended to improve understanding of these areas of the Act. with a view to providing greater certainty for agencies and improving compliance. We would like you to help shape our thinking. We plan to explore some of the tensions arising from the Act?s goal of increasing transparency and trust in government, and current practice around these sections, with leaders and experts on the law and public policy. We will be joined by the Head of States Services and the Secretary of the Treasury, reflecting the priority that SSC, the Treasury and DPMC attach to ensuring the Act continues to be a foundation stone for accountability and transparency in our democracy. We are intending to run a three hour session from 2.30pm - 5.30pm on Wednesday 14th December at Premier House. We will send you further details of the day and a list of participants in due course. The session will be held under an expectation of confidentiality we will not quote your views without your permission. Please con?rm your attendance to Charlotte Denny mm?) by November 1st. You can contact her on mm? for further information. We look fonNard to meeting you in December. Yours sincerely Yours sincerely L-Uol (LN MW Andrew Kibblewhite Judge Peter Boshier Chief Executive, DPMC Chief Ombudsman