"Ways to circumnavigate it are in the first place discovered, and in the second place accepted."
The Ombudsman Dame Beverley Wakem has announced an independent review of government agencies and ministerial offices in December. She expected the investigation to act as a "valuable health check".
Mr Crawford is stepping back from the project to concentrate on work commitments with start-up Hapara, and the Herald has agreed to help run the website.
Recent requests include asking for documents provided to Ministry of Social Development Fraud investigators, looking at reviews of Medical Cannabis and detailing the gender breakdown of Scholarship Chemistry Exam results.
The FYI website has even fielded a request to provide any evidence that the Prime Minister is not a "David Icke style shapeshifting reptilian alien" which received media attention for the good-humoured reply, "no official information specific to [the] request has been identified".
UK-based charity MySociety created the original software which was later named Alaveteli, and versions have been launched around world in countries including Australia, Hungary, the Ukraine, Uruguay and Rwanda.
Freedom of information laws like New Zealand's Official Information Act exist in at least 95 countries, but continue to cause tension with authorities.
Tony Blair described the United Kingdom's laws as "utterly undermining of sensible government" and closer to home, John Key came under fire for admitting the government has deliberately delayed answering requests.
OIA requests require responses within a statutory maximum period of 20 working days, with extensions allowed under certain circumstances.
Legislation also states that ministers and public agencies must respond as soon as reasonably possible, however Mr Key has stated "sometimes we wait the 20 days because, in the end, Government might take the view that's in our best interest to do that".
Revelations from Dirty Politics showed that information delayed for release had been passed on to a blogger for political purposes.
Go to FYI.org.nz to make an OIA request.
For more details about the OIA request process see the Ministry of Justice FAQ.
Read David Fisher's speech about experiences with the OIA to public officials.
Q & A with Rowan Crawford:
When did FYI.org.nz start?
It started from the hack day after this event: https://wiki.open.org.nz/wiki/display/main/Barcamp+and+Hackfest
I got a fork of whatdotheyknow.com up and going in Wellington airport heading home on the Sunday. At the time Alaveteli didn't exist - NZ was the first new jurisdiction.
How did you hear about Alaveteli?
"OIA Requests Online" made it on to a post-it note for possible projects at the hack day - someone mentioned that there was a site in the UK, and Google did the rest.
Alaveteli happened after that, after MySociety got some funding to help other countries do similar sites. So really it's down to the ability of MySociety to put the case for funding for civic society apps.
What made you decide to take on the mantle to maintain an Alaveteli install?
To be honest, I kind of fell into it. There were a lot of barriers (not least fear of legal risk) that were solved by ignoring them. It wouldn't have happened without encouragement & resources from Open NZ and later OKFN.
For a long time I had this idea that the government would take over the project once it'd been stood up - that, in my mind, was all I was committing to, standing up the project.
What is it like at the helm of a popular volunteer run civic society project? Does New Zealand have a large enough community to support these kinds of volunteer efforts?
The community is really quite small for this kind of thing! Although, having said that, it was clear to me from questions forwarded on from MySociety that people were looking at getting started, but something was going wrong with communicating what was already there - people looking for things to do in NZ were finding civic society work in the UK easier than they were finding local work.
Have you had many discussions with MySociety or other international groups running Alaveteli? How do their experiences compare?
MySociety have been quite active at getting feedback and they sponsored me to both of the Alaveteli conferences.
One thing that's clear to me is that while there are problems, we're also in a relatively good state internationally. The principles are clear with a presumption of openness and there isn't a patchwork of legislation. There's no barrier of a blanket request fee in place. In some jurisdictions it's a risky political act to make a freedom of information request.
What have been some of the most interesting interactions, requests and experiences you've had with running FYI?
I have an enduring affection for the requests for the police procedure manuals, in that they mostly got answered.
What has been the most challenging?
Definitely site stability - it's not my wheelhouse, and if I was going to get it in the neck, it'd be then, which I 100% understand.
How have you found the interaction with public bodies receiving requests from FYI? Do they look on FYI positively or an increase in work load? Any horror stories (that you wouldn't mind published)?
My interactions have overwhelmingly been positive - there seems to be an understanding of the site's role as a conduit. I think the value of the site in reducing duplication of requests and responses is reasonably well understood.
The worst experiences have been people using the site to throw mud at people & public bodies and cleaning up after that.
In general, do you think that the OIA is working well or are there aspects that could improve? What could government do (if anything) to make the process easier and more transparent?
I think the OIA is being weakened over time as ways to circumnavigate it are in the first place discovered, and in the second place accepted.
One project I would like to see is to open up the Office of the Ombudsman's work queue. When things go wrong with the OIA it ends up there, and it's my understanding that situation's worsening. If that information were opened up it might make the health of the OIA more transparent.
One thing that happened in the UK parliament was that stats from whatdotheyknow.com have been tabled, and taken as motivation for public bodies to not be last on that list. To my understanding that hasn't happened here ... yet.
What advice would you give to any one wanting to get involved in a civic project?
Just Do It!
