Macquarie University may have left behind the uncertainty of the past detailed in the Information Commissioner's report, with this Announcement on Friday (hat tip to a reader) of a commitment to the NSW Government Information (Public Access) Act which "grants new rights of access to meet community expectations for a more open and transparent public sector." Parliament passed the law in June 2009. It came into effect from 1 July 2010:
We are committed to ensuring we meet the requirements of the GIPA Act and that we appropriately respond to other requests for information. As demonstration of this commitment, we have:Contracts on the Contracts Register and the Disclosure Log or other Open Access Information are yet to be published.
• completed, and published on the web (see http://disclosure.mq.edu.au/), a publications guide
• developed and published training material, and commenced training staff in GIPA Act compliance
• collected contractual information into a centralised database ready for publishing on the web
• aligned our internal records management policies to include the GIPA Act
• maintained a Disclosure Log as a record of information that Macquarie University has already released
• incorporated required GIPA statistics into the annual report
• received and processed GIPA applications since July 2010.
The Information Commissioner wanted a statement of commitment publicly and to staff, and a report on processes to promote compliance about now, and plans an audit in September.
> The Newcastle Herald first sought such information in 2007. The National Tertiary Education Union successfully had the information released earlier this year under Government Information Public Access laws.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theherald.com.au/news/local/news/general/3m-for-newcastle-uni-executives/2177393.aspx?src=rss
The sky certainly hasn't fallen in at Newcastle University since they became, all of a sudden, more open.