11 March 2025 45 Pipitea Street,
Thorndon, Wellington 6011
Chris Johnston
PO Box 805, Wellington 6140
[FYI request #29412 email]
Phone +64 4 495 7200
Ema
il [email address]
Website
www.dia.govt.nz
Tēnā koe Chris,
Your Official Information Act request [OIA2425-0763]
I am writing regarding your Official Information Act (Act) request, which was received by the
Department of Internal Affairs (the Department) on 13 February 2025.
You have requested:
1. Can you please confirm that DIA is aware of the work of Auckland Transport that was
awarded the ALGIM (Association of Local Government Information Management)
Information Management Project of the Year Award 2023 for AT's "Innovative approach
to automating digital records management" as listed here
https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Falgim.org.nz%2F2
023Awards&data=05%7C02%7Cmass.info%40dia.govt.nz%7C4ad262870cb144229f0208d
d4bce9f45%7Cf659ca5cfc474e96b24d14c95df13acb%7C0%7C0%7C63875007300290201
9%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCI
sIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Mwshq
gVtkzjkcvlQAswBdzxmFNU4Qz4wj2PHerHn0zU%3D&reserved=0
Supply any document that demonstrates:
2. That DIA is aware of the Auckland transport project mentioned above and
3. Any plans or proposal by the Prime Minister’s Office, Minister of Internal Affairs and/or
DIA to implement automated document tagging/classification and/or automated
retention management recommendations.
4. Any time frames for achieving increased search capabilities.
Please find my response to your questions below.
Questions 1 and 2
The Department is aware of the work of Auckland Transport that you have referenced. A number
of Archives New Zealand staff attended the ALGIM Conference. In addition, Archives New Zealand
held a knowledge sharing session with Auckland Transport on 22 January 2025. The session
focused on Auckland Transport’s automatic auto-classification systems and lifecycle. Attendees
were given an overview of the origins of the project to the present day and were introduced to
some of the tools used by Auckland Transport. There were no documents shared with the
Department during or following the session and the session was not minuted.
Questions 3 and 4
The Department is in the process of transitioning its enterprise content management system to
SharePoint Online. As part of this project the Department will be implementing AvePoint Opus to
automate records management. Document tagging and classification will be considered following
the project’s completion in June 2025. At this time there are no specific plans to implement an
enterprise search tool or similar technology, however this may form part of the Department’s
future plans.
In terms of plans or proposals by the Prime Minister’s office or Minister of Internal Affairs to
implement automated document tagging/classification and/or automated retention management
recommendations, the Department is only able to respond in relation to information that it holds,
or topics over which it has functional responsibility. Parliamentary Service is the Information
Technology provider for Minister’s offices. Any documented plans or proposals for IT changes to
parliamentary systems will be held by them. As the Parliamentary Service is not subject to the
Official Information Act, I am not able to partially transfer your request to them. Should you wish
to engage directly with the Parliamentary Service, you are able to contact them at
[email address].
In respect of increasing search capabilities, the Department works together with the Parliamentary
Service to support Minister’s offices, and to facilitate responses to Official Information Act
requests for information of former Ministers who are no longer subject to the Act.
Ministers’ offices have recently begun to use SharePoint Online. Parliamentary records from the
53rd Executive onwards are now easier to search and locate. The AvePoint Opus records
management tool has been implemented in SharePoint Online to facilitate future disposal and
transfer activities.
The Department is supporting the Parliamentary Service to migrate older parliamentary records to
SharePoint Online. Once in SharePoint Online the records will be easier to search. This work is
ongoing and does not have a specific timeframe for completion, in view of the substantial volume
of historical Ministerial records involved.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, the Department has
decided to proactively release a copy of this response on the Department’s website. All requester
data, including your name and contact details, will be removed prior to release. The released
response will be available her
e: https://www.dia.govt.nz/Official-Information-Act-Requests-2
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You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or Freephone 0800 802 602.
If you have any feedback or questions about the Department’s response, please let us know at
[email address].
Yours sincerely
Debra Love
Acting General Manager, Workplace Services Group
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