Independent reviewof Australian Government

environmental information activity

Final report

Stephen Morton and Anthea Tinney – Reviewers

Independent reviewof Australian Government

environmental information activity

Final report

Stephen Morton and Anthea Tinney – Reviewers

Creative Commons

This report is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/deed.en).

This publication should be attributed as:

Morton, S. and Tinney, A., 2012. Independent review of Australian Government environmental information activity: Final report. Canberra: DSEWPaC.

Disclaimer

This report was prepared by Stephen Morton and Anthea Tinney. The views it contains are not necessarily those of the Australian Government. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that the contents of this publication are factually correct, the Commonwealth does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the contents, and shall not be liable for any loss or damage that may be occasioned directly or indirectly through the use of, or reliance on, the contents of this publication.

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

The Hon. Tony Burke MPMinister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and CommunitiesParliament HouseCANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear Minister

We have now concluded an Independent Review of Australian Government Environmental Information Activity, which we were engaged to undertake in November 2011 by Dr Paul Grimes, Secretary of the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.

We attach our report for your consideration. The terms of reference asked us to report on processes for the investment in, management and use of environmental information so as to identify opportunities for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the Australian Government’s environmental information business. Our review is part of the initiative for a National Plan for Environmental Information.

Our report identifies obstacles to efficient and effective use of environmental information across the Australian Government, and provides recommendations to overcome these obstacles. In particular, we recommend establishing new governance arrangements to ensure that policy priorities and strategic directions are set at the whole-of-government level.

We believe that Australia deserves an environmental information system that is responsive to policy through efficient and effective use of that information for improved environmental management. Real-time accession of environmental information is accelerating dramatically and modelling of national and regional environments is becoming possible. If the Australian Government is prepared for these possibilities then the nation will benefit greatly through improved management, both of its environmental heritage and its information assets. With patience and focus, initial developments in the National Plan for Environmental Information can now be built upon to place Australia in a world-leading position.

We commend the report to you.

Yours sincerely

Dr Stephen Morton Ms Anthea Tinney

November 2012

ContentsExecutive summary................................................................................................................................viii

Recommendations of the review........................................................................................................xii

1. Introduction..........................................................................................................................................1

1.1 The National Plan for Environmental Information..........................................................................1

1.2 The Australian Government information context...........................................................................2

1.3 Environmental information............................................................................................................4

1.4 Previous environmental information reform..................................................................................4

1.5 Approach taken by the review........................................................................................................6

1.6 Structure of the report...................................................................................................................7

2. Cultural issues.......................................................................................................................................8

2.1 The challenges................................................................................................................................8

2.1.1 Information to support evidence-based policy........................................................................8

2.1.2 Utility of existing environmental information.........................................................................9

2.1.3 Clear roles and responsibilities..............................................................................................10

2.1.4 Clear policy priorities.............................................................................................................10

2.1.5 Governance structures..........................................................................................................11

2.1.6 Policy and budgetary time scales..........................................................................................11

2.1.7 Security culture.....................................................................................................................12

2.2 Recommendations........................................................................................................................13

2.2.1 Establish a policy advisory group on environment................................................................13

2.2.2 Refocus the Australian Government Environmental Information Advisory Group................14

2.2.3 Engage the states and territories..........................................................................................14

3. Structural issues..................................................................................................................................15

3.1 The challenges..............................................................................................................................15

3.1.1 Internal agency organisation.................................................................................................15

3.1.2 Cross-agency barriers............................................................................................................16

3.1.3 The ‘embedded bureau’ model.............................................................................................17

3.1.4 Examples of whole-of-government coordination groups......................................................18

3.1.5 A whole-of-government coordination mechanism................................................................19

3.1.6 The role of a central coordinating authority for environmental information........................20

3.2 Recommendations........................................................................................................................21

3.2.1 Improve coordination at an agency level..............................................................................21

3.2.2 Improve the central coordination of environmental information.........................................22

4. Funding arrangements........................................................................................................................23

4.1 The challenges..............................................................................................................................23

4.1.1 The cost of environmental information.................................................................................23

4.1.2 Accounting for environmental information...........................................................................24

4.1.3 Duration of funding...............................................................................................................25

4.1.4 Ensuring value from information investments......................................................................26

4.2 Recommendations........................................................................................................................26

4.2.1 Find funding efficiencies........................................................................................................27

4.2.2 Ensure new investments are collaborative and meet priority needs....................................27

5. Technical issues...................................................................................................................................28

5.1 The challenges..............................................................................................................................28

5.1.1 Standards..............................................................................................................................28

5.1.2 Collection standards..............................................................................................................29

5.1.3 Authoritative standards.........................................................................................................30

5.1.4 Information and records management.................................................................................31

5.2 Recommendations........................................................................................................................32

5.2.1 Affirm the central coordinating authority’s role in addressing standards.............................33

5.2.2 Promote the use of machine-readable information..............................................................33

6. Legal arrangements............................................................................................................................34

6.1 The challenges..............................................................................................................................34

6.1.1 Creative Commons licensing.................................................................................................34

6.1.2 Making environmental information publicly available..........................................................35

6.1.3 Jurisdictions...........................................................................................................................35

6.1.4 Repurposing information.......................................................................................................37

6.1.5 Government-funded research...............................................................................................37

6.1.6 Legislative restrictions...........................................................................................................38

6.2 Recommendations........................................................................................................................38

6.2.1 Remove barriers to open licensing........................................................................................39

7. A whole-of-government system..........................................................................................................40

7.1 Examples from other sectors........................................................................................................40

7.2 Examples from other jurisdictions................................................................................................43

7.3 A vision for environmental information........................................................................................44

7.4 Conclusion....................................................................................................................................47

Acknowledgements................................................................................................................................48

Appendix 1: Terms of reference.............................................................................................................49

Appendix 2: List of shortened forms.......................................................................................................51

Executive summary

Introduction

This review has examined existing environmental information activity across the Australian Government to identify opportunities for cooperation, consolidation, improvement and efficiency. Our focus has been on the ways in which environmental information is acquired, managed and used rather than on what information is involved. The review aimed to discover and recommend actions to address systemic issues in the effective provision of environmental information to those policy areas that rely on, or could benefit greatly from, targeted, timely and appropriate evidence about the environment.

Key findings

The review identified obstacles to effective and efficient use of the environmental information base across the Australian Government, summarised in five themes: cultural issues that inhibit collaboration between policy makers and information providers; structural barriers to coordination and cooperation; current funding arrangements; technical barriers; and legal barriers.

Cultural issuesEvidence provided to the review indicated that environmental information provider agencies are not universally effective in interfacing with policy. Ineffectiveness occurs mostly where there is a lack of appreciation among information providers to the needs of policy makers, and inadequate governance to ensure that providers prioritise their work to align with those policy needs. The lack of guidance to provider agencies, and the inability of policy agencies to express clear priorities, is a key failing. The ‘short-termism’ of policy interest, while legitimately inherent to that domain, also makes it difficult for provider agencies to anticipate and respond with quality information, or to build, maintain and reuse the long-term datasets needed to answer many policy questions with rigour.

Under such conditions, the collection and maintenance of environmental information by

provider agencies tends to be driven by bilateral service agreements with policy agencies or by research questions, either of which may be only weakly linked to whole-of-government priorities. A lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities for environmental information across government also makes it difficult to identify the best source for information when it is required, and risks duplicative investment by provider agencies in collecting and maintaining information.

Redressing these cultural issues requires improved communication and coordination between policy agencies and provider agencies. New governance arrangements are recommended to ensure that policy priorities and strategic directions are set at the whole-of-government level, and to make sure that roles and responsibilities are clear. These arrangements require the creation of a high-level body – a Policy Advisory Group on Environment – to set the environmental information policy agenda, and the re-tuning of the existing Australian Government Environmental Information Advisory Group (established under the National Plan for Environmental Information, or NPEI) to assist in translating this agenda into tangible information activities.

Structural barriersStructural barriers are those which prevent discoverability and inhibit sharing between agencies. They begin with poor internal coordination. This means that many agencies do not have visibility of information held within their own perimeters and so have limited ability to share holdings within their own agencies and with other agencies. While most agencies have a senior leadership role charged with oversight of information technology, few extend this role or complement it with responsibility for broader information management. Such leadership is essential not only to ensure that good information management practices are followed internally but also to facilitate coordination between agencies.

Many agencies possess analytic capability in internal ‘embedded’ bureaus which provide information tailored to each agency’s business.

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These bureaus tend to rely on informal networks to share information among agencies, making staff retention and corporate knowledge the key feature of their success. These units can face similar cultural challenges within their agencies as those described above between agencies, the exception being where a ‘broker’ links policy needs to the provision of environmental information.

Mechanisms to facilitate whole-of-government coordination in environmental information have grown in recent years, but they remain inadequate. As a consequence, agencies have few avenues through which to discover, expose and share their environmental information activity with others, which in turn can lead to duplicative activity.

Improving whole-of-government coordination of environmental information is necessary. While the role of the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) as the central coordinating authority has been established under the NPEI initiative, there are some aspects of this function that are yet to be fully realised. We recommend that BoM, in this role, should maintain fundamental authoritative datasets for the Australian Government or endorse as authoritative those held by other custodians. Further, we suggest that BoM should develop operating arrangements to provide effective access to these datasets wherever they are held, and that it maintains a catalogue of information held across government and of current information activity. Establishing panels for the collaborative purchasing of information, particularly in areas where significant private-sector products are available, is another essential service that should be provided by BoM.

To improve coordination within agencies, we recommend stronger senior executive leadership through an annual priority-setting process to decide and communicate each agency’s information needs. We also recommend the strengthening or development of analytic capacities within policy agencies, such as embedded bureaus, including provision of broker units where necessary to translate and promote the work of a bureau internally. Linking these analytic units with BoM as the

central coordinating authority for environmental information will create a formal network for sharing and checking for duplicative processes. Finally, we recommend that each agency employ an enterprise architecture approach to understand the information generated as part of its business-as-usual processes, leading to beneficial capture and reuse.

Funding arrangementsThe funding arrangement for environmental information can act as a barrier to a coordinated system. In general, the cost of environmental information is not accounted for across government, which limits the ability to analyse returns on the investment in that information. Short-term policy demand comes with short-term funding, which creates a tension where longer-term data are necessary to answer policy questions. This mismatch also risks losing the investment that is made in environmental information, especially where it does not provide for reuse through ensuring ongoing collection and maintenance.

To check for duplicative investment in environmental information and to ensure funding is effective in meeting the needs of government, we propose to reform funding arrangements by increasing transparency of investment; by auditing the current expenditure on environmental information in priority areas; and by creating a way for new spending to be checked against existing holdings. New investments that meet shared needs against priority areas will be made under the aegis of the Policy Advisory Group on Environment, which will fund the Environmental Information Advisory Group’s workplan.

Technical barriersThe dominant technical barrier is a lack of consistent information standards across agencies and between governments. Standards reduce transaction costs and improve the likelihood that data will be provided as required. The problem is not usually that standards are absent, but more often there is an abundance of different and isolated standards. Resolving these into one standard, or at least interoperable standards, is the

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current challenge. While collection standards help to ensure data quality, metadata standards are the key to reusing information. Metadata provide information about data, which allows analysis of whether data can be used for an intended purpose. Harvesting metadata also allows cataloguing of information for powerful search engines, the underpinning infrastructure of a semantic web and the first step towards ‘big data’.

Storage capacity issues are beginning to emerge for digital information and solutions are being sought through collaborative computing arrangements. Significant amounts of environmental information acquired by government are, however, still paper-based. Capturing information from regulatory and grant-reporting processes, for example, will unlock a significant source of environmental information for reuse. To be able to harvest this information requires implementation of an Electronic Document Record Management System (EDRMS) that is searchable – with a framework for modelling, mapping and organising information using metadata.

Accelerating the uptake of EDRMSs requires recognition that valuable information is generated at all stages of an agency’s business process, which in turn requires a full understanding of those processes and a realised architecture to make information interoperable, discoverable and accessible.

The first step to overcoming barriers to the implementation of EDRMS technology is the harmonisation, resolution and maintenance of authoritative standards. It is also necessary to continue to promote the use of machine-readable information and the supporting technical systems. These would include developing an enterprise architecture capability within agencies or across government to allow the capture of information for reuse, and the implementation of EDRMSs that fully support machine-based harvesting of information.

Legal barriersThe review found that the majority of legal barriers preventing effective use and reuse of environmental information involved licensing

restrictions. Australian Government policy endorses the use of Creative Commons Attribution licensing and the Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing (AusGOAL) framework; however, a significant amount of environmental information is still restricted by licensing conditions. For the most part this is due to legacy licensing issues, where the data were obtained under restrictive licences prior to the introduction of the present policy or where the third-party provider of that information imposes such licensing despite the Australian Government position.

Concerns about public sharing of sensitive environmental information, such as the location of threatened species, may also motivate licensing restrictions. This, however, often results in large amounts of non-sensitive data being restricted due to a few records within a dataset; a better approach would be to specifically restrict the records themselves, rather than the entire dataset. Overall, a failure to license freely has led to duplication of datasets in many cases, and to difficulties in subsequently reusing data for different purposes.

The states and territories are significant third-party providers of environmental information to the Australian Government. The licensing restrictions that may be placed on data obtained from the jurisdictions are often motivated by cost-recovery drivers, but examples were provided to the review of situations in which the Australian Government was able to work within these restrictions to produce publicly available information products using restricted data. The implementation of the AusGOAL framework across the jurisdictions is encouraging the removal of such restrictions and should see more information released under Creative Commons licensing.

In light of these ongoing difficulties with the licensing of environmental information, the review recommends that the Environmental Information Advisory Group works to produce a guide to implementing the AusGOAL framework for users and providers of environmental information; that agencies

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undertake an audit of their information licences with the aid of the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) and with a view to resolving legacy licensing issues to allow full use of the AusGOAL framework; and that in all possible cases, licences purchased for data be whole-of-government and allow ongoing use, as well as release under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.

The future

Within the broader landscape of information reform, environmental information requires particular attention. In general, it has lagged behind economic and social information in its organisation and availability across government because of its organic, rather than strategic, growth. A lack of agreed standards, unclear roles and responsibilities across government, and legacy licensing issues restricting sharing are problems that plague this sector and which must be addressed. Our report suggests ways to reform key processes to create a system that works at a whole-of-government level; to answer major policy priorities; to harness existing environmental information; to invest in shared and enduring needs across government; and ultimately to build an agile system that can be responsive to policy requirements across several time scales.

A whole-of-government system is required if reform is to be achieved, and so the review has noted examples of coordinated information activity in other sectors of the Australian Government, internationally and in other Australian jurisdictions.

The creation of a Policy Advisory Group on Environment (PAGE) will provide senior leadership, set the strategic direction for

environmental information reform, and prioritise whole-of-government policy needs for environmental information, staged through time. The Environmental Information Advisory Group (EIAG), an existing reform of the NPEI, should continue its work to meet strategic objectives defined by PAGE. The role of BoM as the central coordinating authority for environmental information should be confirmed and extended.

Finally, there is the question of how the Australian Government should work with the states and territories, an issue that must be addressed, initially through the Council of Australian Governments. The prize is a fully integrated environmental information system; the task begun through the NPEI now needs careful, guided development extending into the long term.

Australia deserves an environmental information system that is responsive to policy and that uses and reuses the information generated by its agencies efficiently and effectively. The NPEI has made the first steps towards this visionary outcome. With patience and focus, these initial developments can result in Australia becoming a world leader. Our review is timely. In the current decade or so, the price and performance of information and communication technology will continue to improve by orders of magnitude; real-time accession of environmental information will accelerate; and modelling of whole-of-nation and regional environmental systems will become possible. If the Australian Government is prepared for these possibilities then the nation will benefit greatly through improved management, both of its information assets and of its environmental heritage.

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Recommendations of the review

Section 2: Recommendations to address cultural issues

2.2.1 – Establish a Policy Advisory Group on Environment (PAGE) to:

prioritise policy requirements for environmental information investment on the basis of their shared significance across government, the perceived level of work required and the anticipated timeline

maintain a list of major environmental policies or programs that are shared across agencies in order to inform its decisions on priority activities

approve and release funding for the EIAG workplan (see Section 4.2 for more information on the PAGE funding model)

clarify, with assistance from EIAG, the key roles and responsibilities for environmental information across the Australian Government

meet approximately three times a year to set the policy agenda and to monitor progress liaise with the Australian Research Committee to ensure alignment of research priorities with

priorities for environmental information.

2.2.2 – Refocus the Australian Government Environmental Information Advisory Group to:

develop a workplan which describes projects to be undertaken by BoM and other EIAG agencies in order to address the policy priorities

provide advice to PAGE on the roles and responsibilities in environmental information across government, exposing any duplicative activity

assist in developing a guide to licensing arrangements for environmental information (see Section 6)

assist the central coordinating authority to discover and maintain a list of environmental information assets across government

have input into the development of standards and national datasets by the central coordinating authority.

2.2.3 – Engage the states and territories.

Consider the current Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act) reform process and the extent to which that could assist in engaging the states and territories more fully in sharing environmental information. In the first instance this could take the form of a pilot project; for example, between the Australian and the Western Australian governments on sharing information obtained from assessments, noting the recent work already undertaken in Western Australia towards this goal.

Engage through the Council of Australian Governments to lead resolution of the many interjurisdictional issues in collecting and sharing environmental information.

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Section 3: Recommendations to address structural barriers

3.2.1 – Improve coordination at an agency level.

We note the need for improved coordination at an internal agency level in order to provide for whole-of-government coordination of environmental information. We recommend three measures.

Executive leadership

Ensure that there is an agency senior executive champion for managing information, and not just for information and communication technology (ICT).

Require agency senior executives to undertake annual priority-setting exercises to decide and communicate their information needs.

Internal analytic capacity

Develop and support embedded bureaus within policy agencies, including providing broker units to promote their work and translate policy needs.

Use these embedded bureaus to provide an interface with the central coordinating authority. This will allow BoM to check for duplicative purchasing and harness shared fundamental datasets while providing tailored, responsive solutions to the needs of each department.

Architectural business understanding

Use an enterprise architecture approach to understand the business and business systems of policy agencies in order to allow information to be captured and reused from business processes.

3.2.2 – Improve the central coordination of environmental information.

Work with embedded departmental bureaus to assemble and maintain a catalogue of environmental information already held across government and of environmental information activity underway.

Endorse authoritative datasets where they are held by other custodians and, where relevant, maintain authoritative fundamental datasets on behalf of the Australian Government.

Develop operating arrangements to provide effective access by relevant users across the Australian Government to information held by the central coordinating authority and other custodians.

Establish environmental information procurement panels for use by Australian Government agencies purchasing environmental information and products, particularly from private sector suppliers. A list of existing panels maintained by other agencies should also be created.

Legislation

Introduce legislation only after sufficient understanding of the ongoing role of the central coordinating authority has been gained through the projects and initiatives currently underway.

Consider the merits of, in the longer term, transferring the central coordinating authority function to a separate statutory body in the manner of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

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Section 4: Recommendations to address funding arrangements

4.2.1 – Find funding efficiencies.

Require agencies to record costs of environmental information in Portfolio Budget Statements and annual reports in order to ensure greater transparency.

Charge PAGE with directing an audit of current environmental information-related expenditure in priority areas.

Make the costs of acquiring and maintaining environment information fully transparent when proponent agencies are developing new policy proposals, using Department of Finance and Deregulation (DoFD) costing sheets. DoFD may then seek advice from the central coordinating authority on whether the environmental information or tools required to support a policy proposal already exist, and seek assistance with costings if they do not.

4.2.2 – Ensure new investments are collaborative and meet priority needs.

Provide PAGE with an initial investment of $10 million per annum to assist with increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of environmental information across relevant portfolios in underpinning major policy initiatives, through the following process:- EIAG will assess shared needs in these whole-of-government priority areas and

propose projects to address these needs; the projects may be collaborative projects or be led by individual agencies but must address a shared need to be considered for PAGE funding.

- PAGE will approve the EIAG workplan and release funding for agreed projects. Consider increasing funding to PAGE for investment in shared priorities as additional

efficiencies are identified.

Section 5: Recommendations to address technical barriers

5.2.1 – Affirm the central coordinating authority’s role in addressing standards.

Harmonise, resolve and maintain authoritative standards for environmental information, following guidance from PAGE on the appropriate priorities and timelines.

Develop new standards where applicable.

5.2.2 – Promote the use of machine-readable information.

Continue to promote the use of machine-readable information, and provision of the technical systems to support implementation.

Develop and use an architectural understanding of business processes to capture information for reuse.

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Section 6: Recommendation to address legal barriers

6.2.1 – Remove barriers to open licensing.

Produce a guide to the AusGOAL licensing framework for users of environmental information through collaboration between EIAG and AusGOAL.

Address legacy licensing issues by having agencies audit their information licensing arrangements with the aid of AGIMO with a view to allowing full use of the AusGOAL licensing framework.

De-identify information when privacy is a concern. Focus on restricting individual records of sensitive data rather than applying restrictions to

entire datasets. Consult with the central coordinating authority on the potential for reuse when acquiring

environmental information with licensing restrictions. Work with the central coordinating authority to identify sources of ‘top-up’ funding when the

cost of obtaining whole-of-government and ongoing use licences is prohibitive. This may come through PAGE investment, through central coordinating authority funds, or through collaboration with other interested agencies.

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1. IntroductionIn November 2011, Dr Paul Grimes, Secretary of the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (DSEWPaC), engaged us to undertake an independent review of Australian Government activity and processes for the investment in, and the management and use of, environmental information.

The review is part of the initiative for a National Plan for Environmental Information (NPEI), announced by the then Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts in May 2010. The NPEI is a whole-of-government program designed to coordinate and prioritise Australian Government environmental information activity. It represents a long-term approach to building and improving Australia’s environmental information base. The Terms of Reference state that:

The review of Australian Government environmental information activity will contribute to the development of the National Plan for Environmental Information by assessing current activity and identifying opportunities for improving how the Australian Government conducts its environmental information business. This includes how the Australian Government acquires or generates, manages, shares, provides access to and uses environmental information.

The full Terms of Reference are provided in Appendix 1.

The review has regard both to the NPEI and to broader environmental information activity across the Australian Government. The focus of the review is on the ways in which environmental information is acquired, managed and used, rather than on what information is involved; the latter is being addressed by other NPEI projects. The operations of the NPEI initiative (the first four years), including the enduring governance arrangements that are being established through the initiative, are within the scope of this review.

The review also examines existing Australian Government activity in environmental information to identify opportunities for cooperation, consolidation, improvement or efficiencies. The review does not aim to describe all the environmental information activities carried out by each Australian Government agency with related business; rather, it identifies common and significant issues that may impede full collaboration across the Australian Government and to which a shared solution can be sought. Addressing these issues is just as critical to building a functional environmental information infrastructure on a whole-of-government level as is investment in data or technological capability.

1.1 The National Plan for Environmental Information

The NPEI initiative commenced in July 2010 to coordinate and prioritise the way the Australian Government collects, manages and uses environmental information. In its first four years, the initiative aims to establish the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) as the Australian Government central coordinating authority for environmental information; formalise arrangements to coordinate priorities and activities across government; review existing information resources and environmental information activity (this review); and begin building priority national environmental datasets and the infrastructure to deliver them. The NPEI is a whole-of-government program implemented jointly by DSEWPaC and BoM.

To date, BoM has initiated development of the National Environmental Information Infrastructure; begun development of an environmental accounting framework; and invested in several collaborative projects across government aimed at demonstrating the value of taking a coordinated approach to environmental information activity. DSEWPaC is responsible for initiating this review; for considering legislative options to establish BoM’s new role; and for drafting a national plan – the long-term strategy for investment in environmental information.

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The Australian Government Environmental Information Advisory Group (EIAG) has been established to provide whole-of-government direction to BoM as the central coordinating authority and to prioritise environmental information activities across government. EIAG is chaired by the Director of Meteorology, with BoM providing secretariat support.

It is a core tenet of the NPEI that policy drivers guide effort in environmental information activity, and that information products need to be targeted to policy makers’ needs. Through discovering and addressing systemic issues in information management the NPEI aims to provide environmental information to those policy areas that rely on, or could benefit greatly from, targeted, timely and appropriate evidence about the environment.

The NPEI reforms represent a significant step towards improving the level of coordination across the Australian Government in the area of environmental information; this review is a recognition that more needs to be done to implement long-term reform.

1.2 The Australian Government information context

Significant reform in public sector information generally is underway across the Australian Government. Several major reviews, strategies, frameworks and principles provide the context for this review, which concentrates on a relatively restricted thematic domain, albeit one with many unique and persistent issues.

The Australian Government Information Interoperability Framework1 was released in April 2006 by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO). This framework was developed to assist Australian Government agencies to improve their capacity to manage and share information. It provides the principles by which Australian Government agencies are expected to share information and establishes the concepts, practices and tools that enable this sharing to take place.

In 2007, the Australian Government endorsed as policy the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Statement of Intellectual Property Principles for Australian Government Agencies2. This statement provides a broad framework for the management of intellectual property by government, including making the Creative Commons Attribution licence the default for public sector information. All agencies were to have adopted these principles by July 2008. The Australian Government Intellectual Property Manual3 was compiled in 2008 to assist agencies in implementing the principles and was subsequently revised in March 2012 to reflect more recent moves towards making public sector information openly available.

The 2008 National Innovation Review Panel4 recommended the development of a national information strategy. Then, in August 2009, the National Government Information Sharing Strategy5 was released. The strategy noted that there had been inconsistent application of information management frameworks and principles across government and attempted to focus effort in this area. The strategy, as well as AGIMO’s Interoperability Framework, also affirmed the principle that government should manage information as an asset and a strategic resource.

1 Australian Government Information Management Office, 2006. Australian Government Information Interoperability Framework. Canberra: AGIMO.2 Attorney-General’s Department, 2007. Statement of Intellectual Property Principles for Australian Government Agencies. Canberra: AGD.3 Attorney-General’s Department, 2012. Australian Government Intellectual Property Manual. Canberra: AGD.4National Innovation Review Panel, 2008. Venturous Australia: Building Strength in Innovation. Melbourne: Cutler & Company. 5 Australian Government Information Management Office, 2009. National Government Information Sharing Strategy. Canberra: AGIMO.

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The 2009 Government 2.0 Taskforce Report6 restated many of the principles already mentioned in support of making government more open and transparent. The report argued that unless there are good reasons to the contrary, information should be:

free (in the absence of substantial marginal costs) easily discoverable based on open standards and therefore machine-readable (anticipating the semantic web) properly documented and therefore understandable (supported by metadata) licensed to permit free reuse and transformation by others.

The taskforce also recommended the use of the Creative Commons Attribution licence as the default – a proposal agreed to by the government in its response and implemented by the Information Commissioner. The Freedom of Information Amendment (Reform) Act 2010 also expressed the aspiration for public sector information to be released openly by default. (Note that all Acts referred to in this review are Commonwealth Acts.)

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has since produced (in 2011) the Principles on Open Public Sector Information7, which are set out in Table 1. Uptake of these principles is occurring across government but still faces challenges. In recognition of this, OAIC’s Open Public Sector Information: Government in Transition report has been examining how Australian Government agencies manage public sector information, noting which principles agencies have found most challenging to implement and what assistance they need to meet their obligations. A full report is due for release in November 2012.8

Table 1. The Australian Government Principles on Open Public Sector Information

Principle 1: Open access to information – a default positionInformation held by Australian Government agencies is a valuable national resource. If there is no legal need to protect the information it should be open to public access.Principle 2: Engaging the communityAgencies should consult the community in deciding what information to publish and about agency publication practices.Principle 3: Effective information governanceAgencies should manage information as a core strategic asset. An ‘information champion’ or knowledge officer should be responsible for information management and governance. Principle 4: Robust information asset managementAgencies should implement robust information asset management. This includes keeping an information register, training staff and establishing clear procedures on information publication and release. Principle 5: Discoverable and useable informationInformation held by agencies should be easy to discover and use. Agencies should ensure that information published online is in an open and standards-based format, is machine-readable, uses high-quality metadata so that it can be located and linked, and is published in accordance with relevant accessibility requirements.Principle 6: Clear reuse rightsThe economic and social value of public sector information is enhanced when it is made available for reuse on open licensing terms. Be guided by the Australian Government Open Access and Licensing Framework (AusGOAL). Principle 7: Appropriate charging for accessAgencies should provide public access to information at the lowest reasonable cost. Public access charges should be clearly explained and consistent with the Freedom of Information Act 1982.Principle 8: Transparent enquiry and complaints processAgency decision making about information publication should be transparent. The procedure should be published, explain how enquiries and complaints will be handled, set timeframes for responding, identify possible remedies and complaint outcomes, and require written reasons to be given when resolving complaints.

6 Government 2.0 Taskforce, 2009. Government 2.0 Taskforce Report. Canberra: AGIMO.7 Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, 2011. Principles on Open Public Sector Information. Canberra: OAIC.8 www.oaic.gov.au/publications/reports/open_psi_government_transition.html

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1.3 Environmental information

Australian governments, industry and communities need comprehensive, trusted and timely environmental information to help ensure government policies and programs are properly evidence-based. Decisions with an environmental component – either impacting the environment or dealing with an impact of the environment on society or the economy – are made daily by individuals, businesses and all levels of government. Environmental information can encompass biophysical, social and economic data. It is also important to note that future policy demands on environmental information will heavily rely on a mix of social and economic data, as well as biophysical information, so that connections between the environment and society can be understood. Ongoing effort to integrate relevant socio-economic data with environmental information is required to provide an integrated and coherent evidence base to decision makers.

Environmental information is needed to:

better target public investment at the program and project level measure and understand the impacts and effectiveness of policies and investments better identify and manage risks enable the productive and sustainable use of natural resources create markets for environmental goods and services, and foster linkages with carbon markets for

wider environmental outcomes provide an evidence base for decision making guide environmental planning, including through environmental impact assessments or influencing

urban and regional development drive more productive and sustainable practices in primary industries enable integrated analysis to better capture synergies and understand tradeoffs between

economic, social and environmental objectives meet reporting requirements and international obligations improve the environmental literacy of all Australians.

Given this wide range of uses, a definition of environmental information was not provided during the consultation stages of this review. A definition of what constitutes environmental information might have implied that the review was focusing on the environmental information itself rather than the activities that support it. Leaving environmental information undefined also allowed individual agencies to ‘opt in’ to the review by identifying for themselves the degree to which they engaged with environmental information in their business activities.

For the purposes of this report, environmental information will be considered to be that which supports or may result from the above range of uses. This would include, but is not limited to: biophysical information such as climate, water, geological and species data; regulatory information such as industry emissions data; and spatial information where it relates to the environment or is used to underpin environmental datasets. Interpretive analyses based on these data and other information products are also included in this definition.

1.4 Previous environmental information reform

The unique and persistent issues inherent in environmental information can be seen in previous attempts to improve the quality and coverage of Australia’s environmental information base. Improving the effectiveness of environmental information has been a long-standing goal of Australian governments, and a number of different approaches have been attempted in the past.

In 1989 the Environmental Resources Information Network (ERIN) was created as a unit within the then Department of the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories to provide access to

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environmental information for decision making, planning and education. At the formal launch of the network in August 1992, the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories noted that there was an urgent ‘need to improve the environmental information base on which government relies to make the many important decisions it must do in order to conserve the nation’s biodiversity within the framework of ecologically sustainable development’9. Over the last two decades, the network has helped improve this base. ERIN currently operates out of DSEWPaC, where its primary function is to support the department’s environmental information needs.

The 1992 Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment (IGAE) attempted to facilitate a cooperative national approach to the environment, including mechanisms for the coordination of data collection and handling. The IGAE was a significant first step in reforming environmental information activity across governments. Its limited success in achieving a significant degree of coordination of environmental information can, arguably, be attributed to two factors. Firstly, much of the schedule on data collection and handling was non-binding, or agreed only in principle, without a clear commitment to outcomes, timeframes or resourcing. Secondly, the responsibilities were vested within a multi-jurisdictional council which did not have the operational capacity, sufficient resources or the enduring mandate and purpose required to achieve coordination over the long term.

The National Land and Water Resources Audit was established in 1997 under the Natural Heritage Trust. Its goal was to develop information to support the assessment of change in natural resources as a result of government programs. The audit concluded its operational activity in 2008. Although the audit produced a number of national-scale assessments and achieved some agreement on suitable indicators for a number of natural resource management issues, it did not develop into an enduring system. Again the reasons for this appear to be twofold. Firstly, as a component of a relatively short-term funding program the audit was not assured of an existence beyond the life of the program. Secondly, it was based on purely collaborative arrangements with no commitment or mechanisms to ensure ongoing information collection against the agreed indicators.

More recently, the Murray-Darling Basin crisis of 2006 precipitated a new approach to the management of water information for the nation with BoM assuming a number of responsibilities for water data. The approach centred the responsibility for coordinating water information in a single agency, backed by legislation in the form of the Water Act 2007, and with sufficient resourcing to undertake the work.

The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 introduced a single national reporting framework for the reporting and dissemination of information about greenhouse gas emissions, energy production and energy consumption of corporations. It is an example of a centrally driven, national initiative backed by legislation. Coupled with the National Carbon Accounting System – Australia’s system to account for greenhouse gas emissions from land-based sectors – it provides Australia with a comprehensive system to track and manage greenhouse gas emissions.

It is informative that the more successful of these earlier efforts were thematically restricted. While those that attempted broader coverage found some success, none has yet delivered comprehensive, widespread and enduring reform.

These failings can, in part, be attributed to the unique challenges posed by environmental information itself. Environmental information, for instance, tends not to be records based, and is not generated for the specific purpose of supporting a constructed system, such as a financial or health system. Rather, environmental information is collected in an attempt to understand and model natural systems, and so is inherently different to other types of information required and generated by governments.

9 The Hon. Ros Kelly MP. ‘Launch of the Environmental Resources Information Network and Naming of Nature Conservation House’ Canberra, 31 August 1992.

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The diversity of sources of environmental information also means that the range of data needed to inform environmental policy is increasingly broad and often extends into other thematic domains, such as spatial and geophysical data, as well as social and economic data. Hence, using environmental information effectively will always involve high levels of interagency and cross-government cooperation. Licensing of environmental information also poses many challenges peculiar to this domain, especially as the Australian Government acquires a significant amount of its environmental information from other jurisdictions.

1.5 Approach taken by the review

In developing the findings and recommendations of this review, consultations were held across the Australian Government and with other selected organisations. A total of 19 Australian Government agencies were consulted (full list in Table 2). Face-to-face meetings with senior representatives of agencies were held in most cases; those consulted were asked to provide written submissions. They were also given the opportunity to comment on the draft report.

Additionally, the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information and the Integrated Marine Observing System, which each represent major collaborative government investment in environmental information or related areas, were included in the consultations. AusGOAL, the interjurisdictional Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing framework initiative, was also consulted.

The consultations directly informed the review but this report only makes explicit and attributable reference to material that was subsequently presented in an agency’s written submission. This method was chosen to ensure that the consultations could be conducted in a frank and open manner, in line with the review’s focus on whole-of-government processes rather than individual agencies’ practices. In addition to the consultation process, a wide range of background information was also considered, including previous reviews in related areas and current publications and reports of environmental information-related initiatives.

Agencies were selected for consultation based on their membership of the Australian Government Environmental Information Advisory Group as they had already been identified as engaging in environmental information activity as part of their business. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the Australian Government Information Management Office and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare were also consulted as experts on Australian Government information. Consultations with AusGOAL, the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information and the Integrated Marine Observation System were held after these organisations were recommended by others as experts on some aspect of the review.

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Table 2. Australian Government agencies consulted by the review

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research

Organisation (CSIRO)Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF)

Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE)

Department of Defence (Defence) Department of Finance and Deregulation (DoFD)Department of Health and Aging (DoHA) Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research

and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE)Department of Infrastructure and Transport (DIT) Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C)Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport (DRALGAS)

Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism (DRET)

Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (DSEWPaC)

Department of the Treasury (Treasury)

Geoscience Australia Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA)Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)

1.6 Structure of the report

This report has necessarily broken down the issues identified into major categories: cultural, structural, financial, technical and legal. Such division is not intended to downplay the complex interactions between the factors identified under these headings. Consequently, the order in which these chapters appear indicates our view that some causal relationship exists between factors. Cultural issues, for example, ultimately underpin funding models – where policy time scales are short, funding provided by policy agencies to undertake environmental information collection will also tend to be of short duration. Structural arrangements for sharing between agencies also reflect the cultural environment in which they are created, and while technical and legal barriers are often cited as factors that inhibit sharing, the tools generally exist to overcome these barriers provided that the cultural and structural incentives to do so are strong.

Sections 2–6 outline the major issues that we found to be currently impeding an efficient whole-of-Australian Government approach to environmental information, and recommend actions to overcome them. Section 7 outlines a vision for how the elements encompassed by our recommendations may work together to create a functioning system, with reference to examples in other thematic domains (health and overseas aid) as well as other jurisdictions, both domestic and international. A summary of the review’s recommendations is provided after the executive summary.

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2. Cultural issues

2.1 The challenges

Australian Government environmental information activity is, generally speaking, too little informed by policy need. Additionally, agencies often decide to undertake environmental information activity on an ad hoc basis, leading to a fragmented information base that cannot always be used effectively to determine long-term trends or evaluate policy effectiveness. There certainly are areas of good practice, but the lack of a coordinated approach at the whole-of-government level ensures that these are not the norm. The consequences of this are duplication and overlap leading to inefficiencies in investment.

Agencies that concentrate on producing and providing scientific or technical information (here, ‘information providers’) tend to have business practices and cultures that are different to those agencies that are responsible for developing and implementing policy (here, ‘policy agencies’). Examples were given to the review of these cultures failing to communicate with each other, with technical jargon on both sides forming a language barrier. Coordination across these two cultures of policy portfolios and information providers, as well as across the silos of portfolios and jurisdictions, is the major challenge in building an agile environmental information system able to respond to the fast-evolving complexity of environmental policy challenges ahead.

While many policy agencies contain an internal analytic capacity (see also Section 3.1.3), those units tend to share more in common with the information provider agencies, which can lead to similar coordination difficulties within the agencies themselves. Symptoms of these difficulties are outlined below and in the chapters that follow. The causes of these problems are complex and intertwined, and addressing them will require significant goodwill and long-term commitment.

2.1.1 Information to support evidence-based policyEnthusiasm for evidence-based policy has been steadily growing during the last decade – in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America, governments have expressed ideals of ‘fact’-based rather than ‘fad’-based policy. Australia has not been immune; the then prime minister stated in an address to senior public servants in April 2008 that ‘policy design and policy evaluation should be driven by analysis of all the available options and not by ideology’10. Answering this challenge for environmental policy has been difficult, despite long and significant investment in environmental information.

Evidence-based policy is a process that transparently uses rigorous and tested evidence in the design, implementation and refinement of policy to meet designated policy objectives.11 Applied to the environmental arena, this can be translated into a conceptual cycle that begins with understanding of the present state of the environment. From this, best practice environmental management of risks and thresholds can be designed. Activities governed by policies and programs are then undertaken which lead to the collection of data on the effects of these activities. Finally, these data should feed back to refine not only the policy or program but also an understanding of the state of the environment.

Environmental information is lagging behind economic and social information in its organisation and availability across government. This may be due, in part, to the complexity of dealing with natural systems, but it is also a result of a culture that allows or even causes investment in environmental information to be disconnected from policy goals and evaluation. The consequences and political costs of such disconnection can be significant. Funding is often provided for policy on the basis of environmental benefit, yet that benefit may not be demonstrable because of the inability to

10 The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP. ‘Address to Heads of Agencies and members of Senior Executive Service’ Great Hall, Parliament House Canberra April 30 2008.11 Productivity Commission, 2010. Strengthening Evidence-based policy in the Australian Federation, Volume 2: Background Paper. Canberra: Productivity Commission.

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interrogate the relevant environmental information. Arguably, a major difficulty of the policy debate surrounding the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is a result of the challenge of showing quantifiable environmental benefits of the policy while imposing costs on stakeholders.

2.1.2 Utility of existing environmental informationIn consultation for the review, many agencies expressed surprise that the state of environment report produced every five years as a requirement under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) is not treated as an audit of the government’s environmental policies and programs. There was often a perception that the report should be used to determine the effectiveness of interventions under national investment programs such as Caring for our Country. A future goal of such reporting may be to examine these policies, to guide future information needs and to inform future policy directions, but to do so will require a significantly improved information base.

Several jurisdictions also produce a state of environment report, in most cases also as a statutory requirement. The formats and reporting styles vary between jurisdictions as do the chosen indicators and focus of the reports. While some of this can be explained by regional differences requiring different parameters to be measured, a significant advantage is lost in not being able to make core comparisons across jurisdictions. The 2008 OECD Environmental Performance Review of Australia12 found that this variance between jurisdictions, along with inconsistencies in data collection, made the aggregation of information collected by different levels of government difficult. At a national level, the Australia State of Environment 200613 report found that:

It is still impossible to give a clear national picture of the state of Australia’s environment because of the lack of accurate, nationally consistent, environmental data. This has particularly serious consequences for identification and management of Australia’s biodiversity, coasts and oceans, and natural and cultural heritage. Better time-series and spatial data are needed across almost every environmental sector.

The problem with a lack of nationally consistent data had not markedly improved for the Australia State of Environment 201114 report.

It is a lack of strategic and targeted environmental information rather than a lack of information that is the problem. Many agencies consulted as part of the review mentioned examples where the government is seemingly awash in environmental information for which the policy analysis layer is either unclear or absent. Policy agencies in turn find themselves needing to invest in the collection of new information in order to answer policy questions while provider agencies find it difficult to discover and predict those policy needs.

There are often difficulties in identifying the tangible policy demand for the information that is being collected. In fact, there sometimes appears to be poor rationale for collection: provider agencies consider data they collect useful for a range of reasons, but may not ask, prior to engaging in data collection, who the end-users are, what they want to know, whether the data will help with the policy problem, and how the information might be repurposed for future use.

Of particular concern is that the environmental information generated by agencies’ policies, programs and regulatory processes is not usually captured in a format or manner that allows for reuse. This information represents a significant resource and a key step in the conceptual cycle outlined previously. Unlocking the value of this information asset requires a good architectural understanding

12 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2008. OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Australia (2008). Paris: OECD.13 Beeton RJS (Bob), Buckley Kristal I, Jones Gary J, Morgan Denise, Reichelt Russell E, Trewin Denis (2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee), 2006. Australia State of the Environment 2006, Independent report to the Australian Government Minister for the Environment and Heritage. Canberra: Department of the Environment and Heritage. 14 State of the Environment 2011 Committee, 2011. Australia State of the Environment 2011. Independent report to the Australian Government Minister for Sustainability Environment, Water, Population and Communities. Canberra: DSEWPaC.

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of the business activity of the agency as well as involving some technical challenges (see also Section 5).

Information that is held by government is often not readily discoverable. Many officials of policy agencies expressed frustration that there is no simple way to review what environmental information is being collected and held across the government. MDBA stated that it has been challenged by the lack of clear catalogues from existing and recognised sources such as BoM, ABS and Geoscience Australia, with the landscape further confused by new initiatives.

In the absence of a clear policy lead, research interests tend to drive the collection and generation of environmental information by provider agencies. The usefulness, for policy agencies, of environmental information thus gathered can be limited due to its acquisition outside of a policy framework. Research is often curiosity-driven and may have international concerns beyond an Australian focus. These characteristics distinguish it from the sort of environmental information required by government, which is decision driven and for the most part relies on established science and quality datasets with long time-series. Information from provider and research agencies can often drive policy, but analytic capacities within policy departments are presently the critical engines of this relationship.

Transitioning new observation sources from an initial research phase into an ongoing state of collection and recording is also challenging. The National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy represents major government investment in research, including into many areas of environmental information. In some cases, research driven by this program has matured to the stage where continued monitoring would contribute efficiently and effectively to a defined national need. Research entities are not suited, nor mandated, to be long-term data custodians and in this case have only short-term programmatic funding.

Without sufficient planning to allow for the transition of key datasets to those institutions that have ongoing funding and a mandate for the collection of information, the investment made in them can be lost. Strategic oversight is necessary to guide transition of useful operational components. It may also be necessary for future research programs to identify the potential for these datasets to be developed, including planning for how operational functions will be maintained.

2.1.3 Clear roles and responsibilitiesAgencies commented on the lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities for environmental information across government. This also makes it difficult for policy agencies both to identify the best source of information when it is required and to discover what information already exists. In the worst cases, the review heard of this confusion resulting in provider agencies selling policy agencies information already available in the public domain. Where new information is required by a policy user, this can lead to competition between provider agencies over resources and questions about the roles and responsibilities of the competing providers.

From discussions with agencies it is clear that a culture of organisations hoarding whatever responsibilities they have acquired is leading to multiple provider agencies engaging in the same activity, without clear boundaries to discourage duplication. Thus, the information effort is spread thinly – at the expense of fewer, better quality datasets. What is lacking is the strategic guidance needed to assess the relative merits of time-series data versus ad hoc data and to develop a unified vision of which datasets are most important to policy.

2.1.4 Clear policy priorities Without guidance on policy priorities for information, provider agencies commented that policy information needs are often complex and difficult to anticipate. As a result, most providers rely on bilateral agreements with individual policy agencies to drive their environmental information activities. Where a provider is internal to a portfolio or agency, there can also be issues with managing the large number of needs arising from different policies and programs. While providers may attempt to focus

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on long-term and fundamental needs, these can be hard to distinguish from specific short-term requirements of policies or programs. The latter may not form the basis for meeting longer-term information requirements.

Strategic guidance about policy priorities and coordination at a whole-of-government level must come from policy agencies. An informative example here emerges from the spatial information experience. The Office of Spatial Data Management was established within Geoscience Australia to provide leadership in government collaboration on spatial information. A recent review of Geoscience Australia 15 considered this expectation of the office to be ‘incommensurate with its size or placement’. The APS200 Location project16 agreed with this finding and recommended that the Office of Spatial Policy be established within DRET. The move to a policy agency was to ensure the ability of the office to resolve competing interests and provide closer proximity to policy developments affecting spatial data priorities.

Guidance as to the policy priorities for environmental information would be useful for the closely related research community. Investments such as the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy have in many cases generated significant environmental information; however, these investments are designed firstly to service researchers, with policy use of the resultant information an afterthought. Several scientific leadership forums exist across the Australian Government, such as the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council and the Australian Research Committee, which provide guidance to the Australian Government regarding research priorities. A mechanism that ensured these bodies were kept abreast of current policy priorities for environmental information would help to leverage Australia’s research capacity to address current policy challenges.

2.1.5 Governance structures In the few cases where there is a clear, whole-of-government environmental policy priority, the system to provide information functions well. Water information reforms were repeatedly held up to the review as an example of a well-organised and functioning system. These reforms were strongly driven by a political and environmental crisis which enabled clear prioritisation of the issue; a significant investment of funds; and the introduction of the Water Act 2007, which made clear the roles and responsibilities of various bodies in relation to water information – including conferring specific powers and responsibilities for water information onto BoM.

There are, however, some difficulties still remaining with the water model. Roles and responsibilities can be complex, despite the legislation. The task of cleaning, organising and delivering the information has been significant, which has caused delays in its availability. Funding that had been provided to support suppliers to improve and provide their water information to BoM ceased in mid 2012. At this stage it is still too early to determine what effect this will have on water information.

There has also been a perception of duplication as both BoM and ABS publish water accounts. There are, however, many types of water accounts: BoM’s account covers physical aspects and ABS’s economic and social aspects, reflecting each agency’s separate mandate. BoM and ABS are working together closely to clarify the role of their respective accounts and to communicate their complementary nature.

2.1.6 Policy and budgetary time scalesThe need to match policy and budgetary time scales is essential but is often a point of tension. Policy agencies tend to operate on short, responsive time scales whereas provider agencies can be more strongly driven by the need to establish long-term, quality datasets. From the viewpoint of a provider agency, it is not unusual for policy agencies to be initially reluctant to undertake the work, or accept

15 Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Finance and Deregulation, 2011. Strategic Review of Geoscience Australia. Canberra: DoFD.16 APS200 Location Project Report 2011. Linking Information to Location. Canberra: DRET.

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the timeframes for its completion, that are required to provide the necessary information to inform policy development.

The Australia State of the Environment Report 2011 noted this issue with time scales, stating that ‘long-term collection of national data on trends of many aspects of the environment is currently limited, which severely constrains the ability of Australian governments to develop and enact evidence-based environmental policy’.17

This time-scale difference is often reflected in funding arrangements. Many environmental datasets are supported by short bursts of program funding (see also Section 4), resulting in a fragmented information system. The consequences can be seen in the current urgent demand for information in relation to coal seam gas extraction, where DSEWPaC is experiencing difficulty in marshalling disparate information sources.

An information system that effectively provides for policy priorities must be both responsive to unexpected short-term demands and be able to develop baseline capacity for future purposes. The review heard that unexpected opportunities can arise when data are captured and collected with a view to reuse, and are then well managed and made openly available. Where this has occurred new or urgent policy questions may be addressed rapidly using existing data.

For example, the bathymetric data that were captured to define Australia’s territorial boundaries have been widely reused and augmented, providing unique information on Australia’s marine environments that has supported DSEWPaC’s work in marine bioregional planning. Similarly, the Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station, which was established in 1976 to monitor and study global atmospheric condition, has since proved invaluable in measuring climate change. In such cases, the long life of environmental information makes the stream of benefits unpredictable. Thus, the current proliferation of cost recovery models for the operation of provider agencies may not be the most appropriate approach to funding the collection of environmental information.

There is, additionally, a tragedy of the commons at play: there are many beneficiaries of investment in environmental information across government but users rarely pay directly for the primary data. Moreover, users are often not able to assess what benefit they are getting for investments in data. This is especially true where the benefits are in the form of costs avoided, such as preventing environmental degradation or the health costs avoided in improving air quality.

It was suggested to the review that considering the collective evidence base as an entity belonging to everyone would lead to a different set of behaviours in how information acquisition, in particular, is planned. One solution may be to run projects on multiple time scales – using what can be done with existing data to answer the short-term policy need, but examining how to build capability in the long term, across multiple agencies. When there is an effective and enduring system in place, consideration could be given to the information base as both related to and separate from the immediate policy question that is driving the acquisition. This would ensure that a long-term view is taken towards building whole-of-government capability.

2.1.7 Security cultureThe culture of information security that has arisen in the last decade may also be having an effect on the willingness of agencies to openly share environmental information. Since 2010 the Australian Government Protective Security Policy Framework18 has been in place. The framework was developed by the Attorney-General’s Department and contains governance arrangements and security protocols for personnel, information and assets to build security across the Australian Government.

17 State of the Environment 2011 Committee, 2011. Australia State of the Environment 2011. Independent report to the Australian Government Minister for Sustainability Environment, Water, Population and Communities. Canberra: DSEWPaC.18 Attorney-General’s Department 2011. Protective Security Policy Framework: Securing Government Business. Canberra: Attorney-General’s Department.

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At the time of the framework’s launch the then Attorney-General recognised that a successful culture will effectively balance the requirement of limiting access to information to those that ‘need-to-know’ with the ‘need-to-share’ imperative of open government. The review heard, however, that security protocols can be a significant cultural impediment to sharing data both within the government sector and between academia and the government.

The need to balance these two concerns is especially important in the environmental information domain, where greater efficiencies and effectiveness can only be harnessed if a culture of openly sharing information is encouraged and supported. It is essential for environmental policymaking that a culture of restricting information sharing based on security concerns does not compromise the progress being made towards more effectively sharing environmental information.

2.2 Recommendations

The cultural challenges outlined in this section are wide ranging. Nevertheless, the issue underlying most of them is the need to improve communication and coordination between policy agencies and information provider agencies. We consider that bridging this divide is crucial to ensuring that the Australian Government’s environmental information activity effectively and efficiently services policy needs.

To address these challenges, our recommendations centre on creating new governance arrangements that will set policy priorities and strategic direction; clarify roles and responsibilities; and ensure that funding for environmental information activity is efficiently and effectively allocated. The recommendations on governance call for both the creation of a new policy-focused body and the refocusing of the existing Australian Government Environmental Information Advisory Group (EIAG) established through the NPEI initiative (see Section 1.1). These two groups will have strong lines of communication and reporting between them to ensure that policy needs and priorities are clearly informing environmental information activity.

Clearly expressing the Australian Government’s policy priorities for environmental information will be useful not only for information providers but for other bodies as well, such as those responsible for setting research priorities.

These recommendations also take into account the cultural shift that will be needed to ensure that both provider agencies and policy agencies have the capabilities to articulate their business requirements more effectively. An integrated vision describing how improved business processes and institutional arrangements would assist in driving this cultural change is presented in Section 7.

There is also a need for the Australian Government to communicate and coordinate more effectively with state and territory governments. The Australian Government relies to a significant degree on environmental information collected by these jurisdictions, which will continue to have an important role to play in any reformed environmental information system. Current arrangements do not satisfactorily engage the jurisdictions to provide a harmonised national picture. We therefore recommend actions which the government could pursue to improve its engagement with the states and territories.

2.2.1 Establish a policy advisory group on environmentIn order to clearly define the policy agenda and priorities for environmental information, the review recommends establishing an ongoing Policy Advisory Group on Environment (PAGE). PAGE will provide strategic direction on whole-of-government environmental information activity and investment and will complement EIAG.

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PAGE should be chaired by the Secretary of DSEWPaC, with secretariat responsibility also residing with that department. Membership will be drawn from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Treasury (to ensure a whole-of-government overview). Other policy agencies will be DAFF and DRET, with further relevant departments to be invited as necessary. BoM will also participate as an observer, based on its roles as chair of EIAG and as the central coordinating authority for environmental information.

We further recommend that PAGE:

prioritise policy requirements for environmental information investment on the basis of their shared significance across government, the perceived level of work required and the anticipated timeline

maintain a list of major environmental policies or programs that are shared across agencies in order to inform its decisions on priority activities

approve and release funding for the EIAG workplan (see Section 4.2 for more information on the PAGE funding model)

clarify, with assistance from EIAG, the key roles and responsibilities for environmental information across the Australian Government

meet approximately three times a year to set the policy agenda and to monitor progress liaise with the Australian Research Committee to ensure alignment of research priorities with

priorities for environmental information

2.2.2 Refocus the Australian Government Environmental Information Advisory GroupWe note EIAG’s current role under the NPEI. We suggest that this role be redirected towards translating the policy agenda into tangible information needs and recommending projects for PAGE approval. To that end, the membership of EIAG should be rationalised, recognising its value as a technical rather than a policy-focused group. Where necessary, EIAG should consider forming subcommittees and standing committees focused on particular issues or thematic domains.

We recommend that EIAG:

develop a workplan which describes projects to be undertaken by BoM and other EIAG agencies in order to address the policy priorities

provide advice to PAGE on the roles and responsibilities in environmental information across government, exposing any duplicative activity

assist in developing a guide to licensing arrangements for environmental information (see Section 6)

assist the central coordinating authority to discover and maintain a list of environmental information assets across government

establish standing or subcommittees as necessary have input into the development of standards and national datasets by the central coordinating

authority.

2.2.3 Engage the states and territoriesTo facilitate improved engagement with the states and territories we recommend that the Australian Government:

consider the current EPBC Act reform process and the extent to which that could assist in engaging the states and territories more fully in sharing environmental information. In the first instance, this could take the form of a pilot project; for example, between the Australian Government and the Western Australian Government on sharing information obtained from assessments, noting the recent work already undertaken in Western Australia towards this goal.19

19 Shared Environmental Assessment Knowledge Taskforce, 2011. Shared Environmental Assessment Knowledge Taskforce Report. Perth: EPA.

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engage through the Council of Australian Governments to lead resolution of the many interjurisdictional issues in collecting and sharing environmental information.

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3. Structural issues

3.1 The challenges

It is not uncommon for there to be duplication of environmental information activity across and even within agencies. Most agencies consulted agreed that multiple purchasing of the same data, research or information product was something that had occurred within their organisations. As environmental information presents a unique challenge in the variety of its sources and the types of data included, having robust and effective structures in place to allow coordination and collaboration within and among agencies is critical to prevent duplication and to increase efficiencies.

There appear to be two main structural causes of duplicative activity. The first is a lack of line-of-sight between, or even within, agencies as to where activities are occurring. The second is an inability to discover what information is already held, again either within agencies or across government. These factors both result, at least in part, from the absence of mechanisms that would allow for greater exposure and discoverability of environmental information.

3.1.1 Internal agency organisationWhile it is not the business of this review to attempt to reform agencies’ internal organisation, there are a variety of models that appear to be more effective when attempting to coordinate at a whole-of-government level. Internal organisation that allows discoverability is necessary to underpin fully effective discoverability at a whole-of-government level. A consistent approach across those agencies that have a stake in environmental information would aid coordination greatly. In consultation, the review heard of approaches in several agencies to internal information organisation, some of which may be suitable to be considered for ‘scaling-up’ to a whole-of-government approach and others which may be applied at an agency level.

Almost all agencies have a Chief Information Officer whose role is technology focused. With so much concentration on the information and communication technology (ICT) systems of an agency there is rarely much emphasis placed on the information an organisation holds. A handful of agencies have recognised this, and in some cases have changed the role of the Chief Information Officer to incorporate information management in the broader sense, sometimes renaming this role the Chief Knowledge Officer.

OAIC outlined the need to create a knowledge champion role as part of the Principles on Open Public Sector Information.20 Following recent changes to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (effective 1 May 2011), agencies have been required to publish a range of information on their websites as part of the Information Publication Scheme. In its submission to the review, OAIC recommended that the senior executive in each agency responsible for the Information Publication Scheme also be charged with ensuring robust management of the agency’s information assets. One of the key features of effective information management, in OAIC’s view, is the maintenance of an asset inventory or register of an agency’s information. OAIC posits that effective leadership on information policy and management can help facilitate coordination between agencies to achieve optimal sharing and reuse of information assets, a view shared by this review.

Agencies that have created a role with responsibilities broader than ICT oversight tend to be those where making use of data is core to their business. DoHA is one such agency, where the Chief Information and Knowledge Officer is a Deputy Secretary. This role is both technical and strategic: for example, the Chief Information and Knowledge Officer’s current tasks in DoHA include creating one version of data analysis and interpretation for the organisation – an auditable process which aims to avoid duplication in process and to reduce duplication of data requests to states and territories. While agencies commented that a Chief Knowledge Officer may only be effective if there is a wider cultural 20 Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, 2011. Principles on Open Public Sector Information: Report on Review and Development of Principles. Canberra: OAIC.

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readiness in the organisation, it seems that where the role is elevated to the right level and has the backing of the chief executive and senior management it may help to create the necessary cultural change.

Organisations have addressed their internal information management in other ways by informally requiring senior executives to communicate to colleagues regarding information, including through the establishment of committees. MDBA uses one such, an information stewardship team, which is an informal network whose remit requires it to discuss cultural change and collaboration across the agency. The team is not specifically tasked with addressing duplication or sharing, but this is likely to be a benefit.

Better internal organisation would also assist in harnessing environmental information that is generated by the business activities of agencies. This could be regulatory activity, such as that undertaken for assessments and approvals under the EPBC Act, or reports on activities undertaken as part of a grants program. Through such processes, industry and the community play a significant role in providing environmental information to government. Harnessing and reusing this information requires that it be submitted to government in a particular form (using appropriate standards and frameworks, see Section 5) and that the business activity of an agency is well understood. This is an architectural approach that involves understanding the business well enough to develop systems that effectively support it while also managing information for reuse.

3.1.2 Cross-agency barriersEnsuring that information is easily discoverable requires more than individual agencies being aware of what information they already hold – there must also be mechanisms by which agencies can communicate with one another about their information holdings. This is most relevant at the point of purchase but is useful at any stage. Some agencies commented that they felt it was necessary to express shared needs, perhaps by advertising at the time of collection or acquisition so that they could, if desirable, share costs and outputs with others.

The review heard an example of an agency making a decision to invest in remote sensing imagery for one of its initiatives. The same imagery could have been used for a range of applications by various state government agencies which would have contributed to the purchase had they known it was going ahead. As it was, the same imagery was purchased again through another program in a different agency for use by regional bodies. Had the initial purchase of the imagery been discoverable by the state agencies at an early stage, they could have contributed funding and shared the information, which would have led to a more efficient investment.

Acquiring information for use across multiple agencies can be a long and time-consuming process, which discourages interagency collaboration. A mechanism to streamline cooperation could make this process simpler and faster. Despite this, many agencies spoken to were reluctant to consider establishing centralised environmental information arrangements because of the probability of increased transaction costs. Others consulted made the point that the value-add from centralising needs to be worth the costs of coordinating.

The Optical, Geospatial, Radar and Elevation Panel is an example of agencies effectively collaborating on environmental information acquisition activity. This procurement panel was established by Geoscience Australia and Defence in 2010 to streamline and improve the way the Australian Government acquires commercial imagery and geospatial data and services. It was established specifically to stop the duplication of purchasing of commercial earth-observation products and to provide visibility of purchasing across agencies. The panel supports cooperative procurements across agencies from all levels of government and has successfully progressed standardised and open licences for spatial and remote sensing imagery. Agencies registered with the panel gain the benefit of awareness of what others hold or are purchasing and may pool funds to buy a more open licence if it is of benefit to their business (see Section 6 for more on licensing issues). The model presented by this

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panel may usefully inform the development of similar procurement panels in other thematic domains of environmental information.

3.1.3 The ‘embedded bureau’ modelSeveral departments that use scientific, economic or technical information extensively for their policies and programs may have ‘embedded bureaus’ within the organisation. Some examples are the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics within DIT; the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics within DRET; and the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences within DAFF. The Environmental Resources Information Network and the Australian Antarctic Data Centre perform a similar role to these embedded bureaus within DSEWPaC.

Embedded bureaus share some key characteristics. Staff working in these areas tend to have longer tenures in their roles relative to other areas of policy and program departments, and often hold much greater corporate knowledge as a result. The bureaus can, however, present a microcosm of the issues that exist between technical agencies and policy agencies in struggling with translation of policy needs. They may also be similarly perceived to lack responsiveness to policy priorities.

An advantage of having an internal bureau to provide technical expertise is that the necessary information is on hand and can be provided in a tailored manner suited to the specific policy requirement. A disadvantage is the opportunity for duplication of effort between departments, and with resourcing constraints, unproductive competitiveness between embedded bureaus and other technical agencies. From a broader agency perspective, issues may also arise when staff are not aware of the bureau’s information holdings and there is not a requirement to consult it prior to purchasing information from outside the agency. Embedded bureaus may struggle to discover the policy priorities of their departments in the same way as do provider agencies in the broader Australian Government environmental information space (see Section 2).

Several examples given in consultation are informative here. Some departments that had previously struggled to link the activity of their internal bureaus with the policy needs of the department had restructured to create a broker role between the two. This was achieved through situating the embedded bureau within a wider branch or division tasked with liaising with the broader department to set policy priorities and promote the work of the bureau. One of these agencies also used an annual process to define policy priorities and emerging priorities in order to link proposed data collection to an established policy need. The agencies that had implemented the broker role believe it had worked well for them, and suggested that it might be possible to create an Australian Government-wide network of embedded bureaus or technical areas within departments, each with defined responsibilities so as to avoid duplication.

Another agency related its experience with restructuring to address duplication, of which a major element was establishing a central area to manage data acquisition. The trade-off for the increased transaction cost to line areas is that the central area assumes responsibility for ongoing maintenance. To support this approach, communities of practice work informally across the agency – sometimes because of financial necessity, sometimes because of a mature understanding of policy need in the area of information. In establishing this new structure, the agency commented that it was important to be clear at the institutional level about the core principles and strategic intent for what information is to be collected. Having a clear policy framework for managing information across the organisation and working to make it understood was also essential.

Some embedded bureaus have a dual role in supporting external stakeholders as well as their home department. Embedded bureaus rarely act as ‘gatekeepers’ for information within departments; generally they do not hold all the information for the organisation, and there may be no internal requirement to use the bureau in obtaining information. Nevertheless, these bureaus are often used to provide technical expertise to their department. Despite there being arrangements in place to do

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so, one embedded bureau commented that it is not always consulted internally and cited at least one instance to the review in which data had been misused as a result.

Embedded bureaus also appear instrumental in the development of informal networks for sharing information. The stable workforce and retained corporate knowledge in these areas means they can be well placed to navigate around the structural barriers that can hinder information exchange. A number of agencies told the review of the importance of informal networks to their information gathering and, for some agencies, of the effective role they play in providing line-of-sight around initial acquisition and subsequent sharing. Such a reliance on staff networks, however, may be heavily affected by staff turnover. Establishing formal mechanisms for agencies to collaborate and share information remains essential to ensure enduring arrangements without detracting from informal networks.

3.1.4 Examples of whole-of-government coordination groupsThe examples above demonstrate that centralisation of capability for information gathering, research and analysis can work at an agency level. They also demonstrate the value of in-house capacity that can tailor its solutions to an agency’s core business and respond rapidly to requests. However, in order to avoid duplication at a whole-of-government level there still must be mechanisms that facilitate interagency coordination. There currently exist several whole-of-Australian Government groups through which agencies may collaborate on environmental information. The majority of these are established around thematic areas, ranging from communities of practice to committees set up by government decision. The five mentioned most often to the review are examined in more detail below.

1. The National Coordinating Committees were set up under the former Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council of the Council of Australian Governments. The Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council was abolished on 30 June 2011 and its responsibilities split between the new Standing Council on Primary Industries and the Standing Council on Environment and Water. The status of the National Coordinating Committees in this new governance structure is currently uncertain. There are four of these committees responsible for coordinating work on soils and terrain, land use, vegetation, and rangelands. Membership of the committees is shared among relevant Australian, state and territory government agencies and research institutions. Each of these committees provides a forum for national coordination and leadership for the development, maintenance and use of data and information products in its thematic domain, including facilitating the development of standards and common metadata. These are best described as expert communities of practice that work to ensure coordination across jurisdictions on technical issues of information exchange.

2. The APS200 is a senior leadership group established by the Secretaries Board (composed of portfolio secretaries, the Australian Public Service Commissioner and chaired by the Secretary of PM&C) following one of the recommendations of the report Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for Reform of Australian Government Administration, published in March 2010.21 Since its inception, the Secretaries Board has commissioned seven cross-portfolio APS200 projects, including one to establish priorities to guide future investment in the use of locational data collected by government agencies (also referred to as the APS200 Location Project). These projects are examples of interagency coordination on priority reform issues for government led by the highest levels of the APS.

3. The ANZLIC Spatial Information Council is an intergovernmental peak body providing leadership in the collection, management and use of spatial information in Australia and New Zealand. Membership includes senior officials from the Australian and New Zealand

21 Advisory Group on Reform of Australian Government Administration, 2010. Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration. Canberra: PM&C.

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governments and the state and territory governments. Since its establishment in 1986, the council has reported to various Ministerial Councils and related bodies as issues arise. The recent report Investigation into the Spatial Capability of Australia22 noted that some members feel there is insufficient progress in and a lack of ability to articulate the need for significant investment in geospatial infrastructure for Australia. The Australian Government response to the report indicates that the council will be revising its strategic objectives in light of these findings.23

4. The Australian Government Energy Data Forum, co-chaired by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics and ABS, is an example of a body dealing with a separate but overlapping field of information, thereby addressing similar coordination issues to those seen in environmental information. Recently established, the Energy Data Forum seeks to improve interagency coordination of energy metric activities; identify and implement actions to improve the scope and quality of information collected; and minimise burdens on data providers through improved information sharing among agencies. A review process is currently underway by the forum to identify priority actions, including removing duplicative reporting.

5. The Australian Government Environmental Information Advisory Group (EIAG) was established under the NPEI initiative in 2010. EIAG is chaired by BoM in its role as central coordinating authority for environmental information. EIAG is responsible for establishing whole-of-government priorities for environmental information that will inform NPEI activities and development. This task has not yet been completed, although a statement of Australian Government requirements for environmental information has been prepared. In consultations, the review heard concerns from EIAG member agencies that its role as a high-level policy advisory group was not being fulfilled; rather, it was functioning as a technical information-sharing body. This technical function is important but the broad scope of EIAG’s interest and its diverse membership means the group may not be as effective for the policy purpose as smaller peak bodies. It will also lack strategic direction and be unable to develop a priority list of national policy issues without a stronger policy focus.

3.1.5 A whole-of-government coordination mechanismThe National Collaboration Framework may also be useful where government agencies are entering into agreements relating to the acquisition and to the ongoing use and management of environmental information. The framework was developed by DoFD, through AGIMO, to assist the Australian Government, state and territory governments and local jurisdictions to work collaboratively to achieve government objectives. The former Online and Communications Council of COAG endorsed the framework as the preferred agreement-making mechanism for collaborative service delivery within and across jurisdictions.

The framework provides a common set of processes and tools (including a suite of template agreements) to overcome business and legal risks associated with cross-agency collaboration. It provides a tiered approach for agencies to follow when seeking to collaborate and reduces costs, time, and risk associated with program or project development and delivery. The framework is intended to be used cross-jurisdictionally and with multiple agencies – after this heads of agreement has been made, specific project agreements can be developed within it between some or all of the parties.

The review heard support for the National Collaboration Framework as a means of resolving many cross-agency barriers, and several agencies are actively pursuing collaborative agreements under it. Geoscience Australia, for instance, has agreements in place under the framework with numerous Australian and state government agencies and has found this to be an effective means to overcome barriers to cooperation, including the effective sharing of data and information. Entering into an 22 Lawrence, V., 2011. Investigation into the Spatial Capability of Australia. Canberra: DRET.23 Office of Spatial Policy, 2012. The Australian Government response to the report by Dr Vanessa Lawrence CB on the Investigation into the Spatial Capability of Australia. Canberra: DRET.

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agreement under this framework can also provide an effective way to formalise otherwise informal collaborative networks. However, while the framework provides a useful approach to structuring collaboration, we note that most situations in which it is used for environmental information consist of bilateral agreements and may not necessarily lead to truly multilateral collaboration.

AGIMO has also developed a number of tools to support the collaborative approach promoted by the National Collaboration Framework. govdex (www.govdex.gov.au) is an internet-based facility that supports cross-agency collaboration and document sharing. It functions as a kind of ‘private office’ where participants are invited to become members. This ensures that, when necessary, work can be kept confidential and confined to a specified group of people. There is also govshare (https://govshare.gov.au/xmlui), an internet-based facility that operates in a similar manner to a library and allows users to publish, discover and consume ICT artefacts. govshare is a community-based facility, which means that each community (for instance, the environmental information community) can manage a ‘collection’ of resources to facilitate discoverability, sharing and reuse.

3.1.6 The role of a central coordinating authority for environmental informationGiven the significant structural barriers to collaboration and coordination identified in this section, it is crucial to have a central coordinating authority to address these issues. Such a body will be essential to coordinate environmental information across the government and effectively assist agencies to collaborate on environmental information activities. In order to achieve these aims, the central coordinating authority would need to act as a clearing-house for environmental information, authorise standards and datasets, and have responsibility for maintaining appropriate infrastructure.

Under the NPEI, legislation is to be enacted to support the central coordinating authority and ensure its core functions and powers are clearly enumerated. We note that BoM has a number of activities and projects underway as part of the NPEI initiative to provide an understanding of the nature and extent of the data and information-sharing problems that the central coordinating authority will need to address.

BoM already has a number of its existing responsibilities incorporated in legislation and any new legislation to confirm its role in environmental information would complement these earlier Acts. Under the Meteorology Act 1955, BoM has the function of taking and recording meteorological observations and other observations required for the purposes of meteorology. The Act also requires BoM to supply and promote the use of meteorological information and to provide advice on meteorological information issues.

More recently, through the Water Act 2007, BoM must be provided with water information as specified in the regulations to that Act. The Act also gives BoM the function of holding, managing, interpreting and disseminating Australia’s water information. BoM has authority under the Act to issue National Water Information Standards, which includes a provision to allow adoption of existing standards, requirements to consult with states in the development of standards and penalties for non-compliance with standards. The review heard that this legislative basis has played an important role in ensuring recent successes in the water information domain.

We also note that there are other legislative examples which could potentially provide a model for the proposed legislation to establish the central coordinating authority. First, the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975 allows ABS to ensure coordination of the operations of official bodies in the collection, compilation and dissemination of statistics; to formulate statistical standards and ensure compliance by official bodies; and to provide advice and assistance to official bodies in relation to statistics.

Further, there is the example of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987, which created AIHW as a statutory body. AIHW was given the function of collecting health-related information and statistics. Its founding Act also allows AIHW to coordinate the collection and production of health-

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related and welfare-related information and statistics by other bodies or person and to provide assistance, including financial assistance, for the collection and production of health-related and welfare-related information and statistics (see also discussion in Section 7).

3.2 Recommendations

The challenges described in this section stem from structural issues of internal organisation within Australian Government agencies as much as they do from barriers between agencies. Our recommendations address both concerns.

The recommendations to improve coordination at an agency level are not directed at specific agencies. Rather, we offer a number of measures that should enable all agencies to improve understanding and coordination of their own environmental information activity. We note also the tools developed by AGIMO to aid agency collaboration, such as the National Collaborative Framework, govdex and govshare, and suggest agencies make use of these where appropriate.

In developing recommendations to improve cross-agency coordination we have taken particular note of the support we heard expressed for the role of BoM under the NPEI as the central coordinating authority for environmental information. We consider that BoM’s role should be reinforced to ensure the effective coordination of environmental information across government and to prevent duplication of environmental information activity.

To this end we judge it essential that the central coordinating authority develops and maintains a catalogue of environmental information holdings across government. This catalogue will include a list of authoritative datasets, both those that BoM maintains itself and datasets endorsed by BoM for custodianship by other agencies. The central coordinating authority will also need to develop mechanisms to facilitate other agencies gaining access to these information holdings or provide streamlined procurement options when new information is purchased.

We have also had regard to a recommendation of the recent review of BoM’s extreme weather capability: that BoM should focus its environmental information role on natural hazards in the first instance.24 We note, however, that it is existing government policy that BoM is to undertake its work under NPEI based on government priorities and resource allocations. We believe it is crucial that the central coordinating authority is able to respond to whole-of-government priority needs.

3.2.1 Improve coordination at an agency level We note the need for improved coordination at an internal agency level in order to provide for whole-of-government coordination of environmental information. We recommend three measures.

Executive leadership

Ensure that there is an agency senior executive champion for managing information, and not just for ICT.

Require agency senior executives to undertake annual priority-setting exercises to decide and communicate their information needs.

Internal analytic capacity

24 Munro, C., 2011. Review of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Capacity to Respond to Future Extreme Weather and Natural Disaster Events and to Provide Seasonal Forecasting Services. DSEWPaC: Canberra.

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Develop and support embedded bureaus within policy agencies, including providing broker units to promote their work and translate policy needs.

Use these embedded bureaus to provide an interface with the central coordinating authority. This will allow BoM to check for duplicative purchasing and harness shared fundamental datasets while providing tailored, responsive solutions to the needs of each department.

Architectural business understanding

Use an enterprise architecture approach to understand the business and business systems of policy agencies in order to allow information to be captured and reused from business processes.

3.2.2 Improve the central coordination of environmental informationIn order to address cross-agency barriers and to improve coordination an effective central coordinating authority is required. We believe it would be beneficial to clarify and strengthen BoM’s role under the NPEI and therefore recommend that the following responsibilities be emphasised or added:

Work with embedded departmental bureaus to assemble and maintain a catalogue of environmental information already held across government and of environmental information activity underway.

Endorse authoritative datasets where they are held by other custodians, and where relevant maintain authoritative fundamental datasets on behalf of the Australian Government.

Develop operating arrangements to provide effective access by relevant users across the Australian Government to information held by the central coordinating authority and other custodians.

Establish environmental information procurement panels for use by Australian Government agencies purchasing environmental information and products, particularly from private sector suppliers. A list of existing panels maintained by other agencies should also be created.

Legislation

Introduce legislation as foreshadowed under the NPEI only after sufficient understanding of the ongoing role of the central coordinating authority has been gained through the projects and initiatives currently underway.

Consider the merits of, in the longer term, transferring the central coordinating authority function to a separate statutory body in the manner of AIHW.

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4. Funding arrangements

4.1 The challenges

The current manner in which the Australian Government’s environmental information activity is funded leads to a number of issues that are impeding the effective use of this information in support of policy outcomes. For the most part, these issues centre on the lack of clear accounting for the cost of environmental information across government; the duration of funding; and the difficulty of ensuring value for investment in environmental information.

Although these issues were most clearly seen at the point of information acquisition, funding issues were also identified with regard to ongoing storage and maintenance. Ensuring adequate funding to preserve and maintain existing assets is just as important to maximise benefit as the funding arrangements employed to obtain new information.

While the level of funding for environmental information activities was on occasion mentioned as a problem, on the whole the review noted that it was arrangements rather than funding amounts that pose challenges. Improved coordination of funding by leveraging current investment is the key to reform.

4.1.1 The cost of environmental informationIt is difficult to estimate a figure for current Australian Government expenditure on environmental information. Part of this inability stems from the definition of environmental information itself (see Section 1.3), as the broader the definition the higher the resulting figure will be.

An unpublished GHD report contracted by DSEWPaC on behalf of the Natural Resources Policy and Program Committee (of COAG) investigated investment in environmental information activities across the Australian Government and five state governments. This report suggested a combined figure of approximately $639.6 million was spent in 2006–07. Of that amount, approximately $574.9 million was spent by the Australian Government. This combined figure grew to approximately $755.2 million in 2008–09, with the Australian Government investing approximately $669.6 million. Assuming such a trend has continued in recent years, the total spent on environmental information activity across jurisdictions per annum could currently be well in excess of $800 million.

In addition to this amount, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) has invested approximately $542 million since 2005 to support research infrastructure and networks. A significant amount of that funding was spent on environmental information, particularly through such hubs as the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network and the Integrated Marine Observing System.

These figures indicate the significance of our recent investment into environmental information activities, but not the value that accrues from such investment. Two recent studies on spatial information may provide informative comparisons. First, a 2008 study on the value of spatial information25 estimated that Australian spatial information industry revenue in 2006–07 could have been of the order of $1.37 billion. A 2010 study by the European Commission26 found the market for spatial data in environmental reports is worth €1 billion per year across Europe (approximately AUD $1.23 billion), and that improving the accessibility of information required for these studies could save up to €200 million per year (approximately AUD $246 million).

A study on the Western Australian Land Information System from 2004 suggested there was a 9-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio on the amount of money spent by the Western Australian Government on the

25 ACIL Tasman, 2008. The Value of Spatial Information: The impact of Modern Spatial Information Technologies on the Australian Economy. Melbourne: ACIL Tasman.26 Craglia, M., Pavanello, L. and Smith, R.S., 2010. The Use of Spatial Data for the Preparation of Environmental Reports in Europe. Ispra, Italy: European Commission Institute for Environment and Sustainability

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coordination, capture and management of spatial data.27 These figures imply not only that the costs to governments for environmental information are significant but also that major economic benefits can accrue from improving coordination to allow the reuse of this information.

4.1.2 Accounting for environmental information The degree to which environmental information is accounted for differs depending on the agency, the type of program or policy concerned and the nature of the environmental information being considered. Only occasionally did the review hear that environmental information activity is identified, costed and visible as part of the day-to-day business of an agency. One agency commented that environmental information is increasingly appearing as an item in its budgets, which is in turn assisting the organisation to understand the benefits provided by that information. DSEWPaC noted a range of approaches to account for environmental information across the department, from ad hoc purchases to formally identifying environmental data acquisition costs in new policy proposals and budgets.

More often, the cost of environmental information activity is not directly accounted for or reflected in agency budgets. DRET, for instance, told the review that funding is not generally specified for the collection of information and is often subsumed in general operational budgets or project budgets. Perhaps surprisingly, agencies that identify a strong day-to-day need for environmental information do not necessarily account for funding in a more transparent way than those agencies for which it is a more peripheral concern.

When environmental information is not accounted for it is likely that information investments, and any products resulting from them, may be undervalued. There are often practical reasons why such expenditure is included in the broader budget context. DIISRTE, for instance, stated that much of the environmental information it collects is gathered as a part of program delivery and so the costs are included within program delivery funds.

Another agency told the review that it does not fully account for its costs in environmental information activity because such activity is seen as part of business as usual; there is no agreement on what constitutes a sufficient amount of environmental information (noting that this may also lead to unnecessary collection); and that no framework exists to manage and assess the range of environmental information collected.

In other cases, the lack of accounting for environmental information costs can be due to indirect funding for that activity. For instance, DSEWPaC administers a small grants program for projects which generate environmental information, yet in order to account fully for the cost of the activities undertaken through this program, significant in-kind contributions from grant recipients and institutions must be taken into account. The review heard that it is also more common that activities centred on maintaining environmental information (such as analysis, storage and curation) are not accounted for, compared with those which focus on information acquisition.

A further reason cited for this lack of accounting is that environmental information activity is undertaken as part of ordinary staff duties and so is included within general staff and operational costs. This is particularly the case with time spent by staff acquiring free environmental information from a range of jurisdictional and non-government sources (museums, universities, etc.).

A number of agencies also considered the lack of financial costing a necessary precaution to ensure the continuity and consistency of existing funding for environmental information. The review heard that, in a tight fiscal situation, funding for environmental information could be seen as an easy target for savings were it to be clearly identified in budgets. This can be a particularly vexatious issue in agencies where environmental information activity is seen to be peripheral to core business outcomes, regardless of the importance of that information to sections within that agency or across government. Resolution of this cultural issue – whereby environmental information is perceived as an expensive 27 ACIL Tasman, 2004. Value of the Western Australian Land Valuation System. Perth: Western Australian Land Information System.

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optional extra rather than an essential investment to underpin good decision making – requires strong leadership and commitment to evidence-based policy.

The review considers that the benefits of revealing existing funding outweigh any risks. Without clear accounting for the diverse range of Australian Government investments in environmental information it is difficult to coordinate efficient funding across government. Further, it will not be possible to put a value on the investment or to expose areas of duplication and overlap which could deliver substantial savings and potential for reinvestment.

4.1.3 Duration of fundingThe short duration for which environmental information activity is usually funded can also result in ineffective use of that investment over the longer term. Funding is usually provided only for the life of a particular project or program and many agencies expressed concerns to the review about this. It is especially damaging where environmental information must be collected over a number of years if it is to be of any value.

As noted by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority:

There are serious issues particularly regarding funding for monitoring programs that are long-term as most existing funding is for a maximum of five years. Very few major monitoring programs for the Great Barrier Reef have secure ongoing funding. Most rely, at least partly, on funding programs such as the National Environmental Research Program and Reef Rescue to ensure their continuation. This exposes important monitoring programs to funding reductions or cuts on a regular basis and reduces the pool of funds available for other important research.

DRET noted similar challenges and stated that funding is generally too short term to provide trend data with any continuity. DIISRTE likewise stated that ongoing funding for environmental monitoring is necessary in order to prevent information gaps and to optimise relevance to policy makers. The MDBA suggested that environmental information management requires a long-term commitment that takes into account not only collection but also storage and future discoverability.

Geoscience Australia noted the challenge for government is in funding observations that need to be taken continuously over time, and moving new data sources from the research to operational phases when they have demonstrated their enduring usefulness. Geoscience Australia argued that funding provided through research infrastructure programs, such as NCRIS, needs to be followed up with funding to operational agencies to ensure an ongoing national system of fundamental observations.

From the perspective of a recipient of government funding through the NCRIS program, the Integrated Marine Observing System identified securing long-term funding to enable extended data collection as a major challenge. They flagged the possibility that funding for their work could cease just as a useful time series is emerging.

DSEWPaC noted that the long-term accumulation of detailed environmental information is often expensive because it is labour intensive. It was suggested that the costs of this activity could be reduced in two ways: establishing agreed, functional standards to enable data from different projects to be combined into a de facto long-term dataset; and using remote sensing technology, which is less costly than field-based monitoring.

The review also heard justifications for the use of limited-term funding. In some cases, terminating measures can increase transparency and ensure the effective use of government money when a periodic review or new policy case is required to justify the continuation of funding. Further, terminating measures also allow the government flexibility to redirect funding as environmental policy and program priorities change.

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4.1.4 Ensuring value from information investmentsThe review heard that sometimes a lack of appropriate resourcing means the required policy outcomes cannot be achieved. DSEWPaC told the review that when there is insufficient funding for new environmental information activity there is a necessary reliance on whatever information is already freely available and accessible.

This approach creates risks with data quality and usefulness as, even when there are sufficient resources to access and evaluate freely available information, the time dedicated to such assurance and management activities is usually minimised. There is also a risk that the true cost of the environmental information activity can continue to be underestimated and so be insufficiently funded in the future.

Custodianship of environmental information is also a major challenge for most agencies, particularly when the ongoing maintenance costs of data are not factored into funding arrangements. The Office of Spatial Policy noted that when environmental information acquisition is specifically tied to project funding little consideration is given as to how data will be stored or accessed beyond the life of the project. Several agencies told the review of their difficulties in finding funds to maintain expensive data holdings when other agencies are able to make use of the information without having to contribute to the funding of the core activity.

DSEWPaC commented that while the management and maintenance of data has often been included as an item within external funding agreements, these clauses are usually not strongly enforced due to political exigencies and a lack of appreciation of data as an asset. It noted, however, that under the National Environment Research Program there is a requirement that all information must be made available on an enduring basis, following completion of the four-year funding cycle.

4.2 Recommendations

The Australian Government spends a significant amount each year on environmental information and it is essential that the costs of this spending, and the value gained from it, are clearly identified. We note, however, that there are currently a number of barriers which prevent this.

Our recommendations to address these funding barriers centre on changes to ensure that environmental information funding is efficient in meeting the needs of government. The first step in reform is to identify the current expenditure on environmental information, and to stop duplicative spending. The second step is to ensure that future investments are made with reference to previous investments and that they address shared need to maximise value.

Not all future investments by government in environmental information will be for shared needs across portfolios, and our recommendation to adjust the new-policy proposal process recognises this reality. Making environmental information investment visible through such a process will allow DoFD to check with the central coordinating authority whether this or similar information is already held across government and to assess the value of the proposed investment. In our view, reporting the costs of environmental information is essential to focus the attention of policy makers and to ensure a more objective assessment of the real costs and value of that information.

In cases of shared need for priority areas, we recommend provision of a separate pool of funding to agencies through the Policy Advisory Group on Environment (PAGE). This recommendation aims to ensure that value from environmental information funding is maximised across government through coordinated investment guided by PAGE and undertaken by the Environmental Information Advisory Group (EIAG). We also suggest the government provide some seed funding and note that, as the system matures and demonstrates its ongoing value, some of the savings gained could be considered for reinvestment targeted at shared priorities.

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Finally, we note the detrimental impact of short-term program funding on the adequacy and sustainability of environment information. We urge the Australian Government to consider making available a more sustained funding base for critical areas to assist in increasing the effective use of environmental information in policy development. We suggest that PAGE would be well placed to identify where ongoing funding can be most effectively directed on behalf of the government.

4.2.1 Find funding efficienciesAn inability to discover the level of investment in environmental information is detrimental to valuing that information as an asset. Further, the information needs of new policies are rarely considered, resulting in ad hoc and often inadequate funding arrangements. In other cases, new funding may be invested where suitable information already existed but was not discoverable. Our recommendations are designed to reveal the levels of current investment in environmental information in existing programs (through annual reports and Portfolio Budget Statements) and to ensure that future investments are checked against current holdings of government.

Require agencies to record costs of environmental information in Portfolio Budget Statements and annual reports in order to ensure greater transparency.

Charge PAGE with directing an audit of current environmental information-related expenditure in priority areas.

Make the costs of acquiring and maintaining environmental information fully transparent when proponent agencies are developing new policy proposals, using DoFD costing sheets; DoFD may then seek advice from the central coordinating authority on whether the environmental information or tools required to support a policy proposal already exist, and seek assistance with costings if they do not.

4.2.2 Ensure new investments are collaborative and meet priority needsCreating a collaborative approach to meet priority information needs across government requires centralising a stream of funding for those projects. PAGE will require funding to invest in those projects brought forward by EIAG in line with its guidance on whole-of-government priorities. Agencies will not have to spend as much on environmental information needs where those needs are aligned with whole-of-government priorities. The following recommendations outline the operation of this system.

Provide PAGE with an initial investment of $10 million per annum to assist with increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of environmental information across relevant portfolios in underpinning major policy initiatives, through the following process:- EIAG will assess shared needs in these whole-of-government priority areas and propose

projects to address these needs; the projects may be collaborative projects or be led by individual agencies, but must address a shared need to be considered for PAGE funding.

- PAGE will approve the EIAG workplan and release funding for agreed projects. Consider increasing funding to PAGE for investment in shared priorities as additional efficiencies

are identified.

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5. Technical issues

5.1 The challenges

There are a number of technical barriers to effectively using and reusing environmental information. In general terms, the key technical requirements to ensure that information is usable are that it is discoverable; accurately described with metadata, based on common or discipline-acknowledged standard terms; available and unencumbered by complex licensing systems; transferable in standard formats; and actively managed to ensure an ongoing point of contact.

The most commonly identified technical barrier to the effective use of environmental information is the lack of consistent information standards across agencies and between governments. The systems which different agencies have in place to store and manage their information can also lead to difficulties with information discoverability and exchange.

5.1.1 StandardsThere are many types of information standards, including quality control-related collection standards; metadata and ontology-related standards; and standards for ICT language, transfer and format. The National Standards Framework28, published by AGIMO in 2009, relates to ICT standards for cross-agency interaction. This describes a governance structure and process to develop standards that will allow agencies to share information both within the Australian Government and across jurisdictions. It includes both semantic (defining terms and their meaning) and syntactic (representation format; for example, language) standards and the methodology for translation between the two.

Metadata standards are becoming increasingly important due to the advent of the semantic web. Web 2.0 was a move to user-generated content; the next evolution of the internet (sometimes called Web 3.0) will be to the semantic web, where machine-readable data comprise the link that forms the network. Metadata standards allow machine-based harvesting of information about information, enabling the creation of searchable, live-updating catalogues. Trove, developed by the National Library of Australia, is an example of one such catalogue based on metadata. Using metadata also addresses issues of information being used incorrectly (which is a feature often raised as an objection to open government) and allows licensing information to be embedded with the data.

There is an Australian Government metadata standard designed to promote visibility and accessibility of information, the Australian Government Locator Service, which is compliant with the Dublin Core international metadata standard (dublincore.org). This consists of 19 descriptive elements which government agencies can use to improve the visibility and accessibility of their services and information over the internet.

For some areas of environmental information the development of technical standards is well advanced. Geoscience Australia and CSIRO led the development of the eXploration and Mining Mark Up Language. This successfully demonstrates interoperability at both technical and information levels, connecting geochemical databases from Geoscience Australia and the Western Australian and South Australian geological surveys. This project has been influential in a current project by the Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information to develop an international standard, GeoSciML, which aims ultimately to allow seamless web integration of select geological information hosted at different agencies in varied formats.

Some of those consulted by the review noted that the geological community was well advanced in terms of both ICT and collection standards, perhaps because of advantages conferred by the topic area. Geological information has better defined units and little change over time when compared with ‘biosurface’ information.

28 Australian Government Information Management Office, 2009. A National Standards Framework for Government. Canberra: DoFD.

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In water information, BoM and CSIRO have developed the Water Data Transfer Format to support the provision of water data as required under the Water Regulations 2008. When the Regulations came into effect on 30 June 2008 there were no applicable national or international format standards and providers were using a number of different formats that were not necessarily compatible. This presented challenges for BoM in collecting data and so work was undertaken through the Water Information Research and Development Alliance between BoM and CSIRO to develop an appropriate technical standard. The resulting Water Data Transfer Format has been adopted as the national standard for water data delivery.

More recently, the Open Geospatial Consortium and the World Meteorological Organization, through their Hydrology Domain Working Group, developed WaterML 2.0, a new open standard for encoding water data for exchange. WaterML 2.0 was recently adopted as an official standard by the consortium and may assist to harmonise water data standards internationally.

By comparison with other types of environmental data, though, both water and geological data have relatively simple structures. Arguably, this has made it more straightforward to develop interoperable standards in these areas. Developing similar standards for more complex data structures may be a more significant undertaking.

5.1.2 Collection standardsDefined units of information are encouraged by consistent collection standards across a thematic domain. Some areas of environmental information are more easily defined as units than others, leading to better information. MDBA commented to the review that hydrological and economic data have clear collection methodologies, allowing data to be efficiently collected and openly provided for use and interpretation. Other themes, such as ecology, are not as well defined and have multiple collection methods, which are not yet necessarily complementary.

Further, legacy jurisdictional issues may compromise collection standards for some types of information. The review heard from DSEWPaC that fishery catch information is often a challenge because different jurisdictions comply with different standards of information collection. DAFF also noted instances where it had to contend with jurisdictional differences in the provision of industry data. Other agencies commented that even within the Australian Government, agencies often collected information to their own specifications rather than using a common set of standards. Driving agreement on standards at this administrative level as well as technical levels will be fundamental to improving environmental information.

In developing a national elevation dataset, DCCEE began by auditing available data, working with the peak bodies in spatial data, and then creating a framework which set standards for quality and interoperability. The department then invested through the states and territories to ensure that the data provided could meet these standards.

DSEWPaC collates Commonwealth, state and territory reserve system information into the Collaborative Protected Areas Database every two years. Although data standards have been developed and the jurisdictions have been involved in this activity since 1996, data provided are still often inconsistent and incomplete. Funding has not been provided to jurisdictions to help implement the required standards. Data quality issues add several months’ work to each collation of data into the database.

A more successful example of the adoption of standards is the National Vegetation Information System, which is also a collation of jurisdictional data into a nationally consistent product. In this case, DSEWPaC developed a comprehensive standard in consultation with the jurisdictions and provided funding to support the development of delivery systems in the jurisdictions. As a result, data aggregation is relatively seamless.

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These examples indicate the most common ways in which a lack of agreed standards incurs costs – either through investment at the jurisdictional level to work to improve standards or through increased workload in the Australian Government. DSEWPaC commented to the review that a feedback mechanism was also necessary to make sure that improved data are returned to the jurisdictions. If not, when a request is made for updated data at another point in time, or by another agency, additional costs will be incurred in bringing the data up to standard again.

5.1.3 Authoritative standardsThe Information Interoperability Framework29, published by AGIMO in 2006, noted that collaboration across government requires the adoption of agreed standards for managing and sharing information. It recommended that individual agencies should collaborate with others in the same portfolio or sector to develop standards for improving information exchange across the sector and comply with standards used widely across government. It also recommended that agencies should:

adopt standard concepts and definitions for recording data and items so that information can be easily compared

keep abreast of whether new standards have been introduced that may be applicable to their holdings, and identify and adopt appropriate existing standards wherever possible

encourage whole-of-government development of standards to address gaps establish data and information management policies and processes that encourage compliance

with standards participate in relevant standard-setting forums.

A number of agencies perceive the take-up of this framework across government to be poor. The review heard opinion that this was because the necessary underpinning changes to culture, policies and organisational arrangements have not been made.

In consultation, agencies agreed with the general view that a single standard reduces transaction costs and improves the likelihood that data will be provided as required. One agency noted that when there are no Commonwealth standards for information gathering then data quality is variable, often due to jurisdictional inconsistencies in classification systems (for example, species names or waste types). MDBA commented that it has been difficult to establish standards in environmental information because technology has consistently outpaced the development of standards.

In its role as the central coordinating authority, BoM has found that resolving the technical issues surrounding the development of common standards and common models to structure environmental information relatively uncomplicated, but the challenge has been in reaching agreement on these standards. While DSEWPaC noted the need for standards to structure information, it did not consider a lack of agreement on standards to be the only impediment to sharing information, with source licensing issues being another significant impediment (see Section 6). Even as progress is being made to resolve licensing issues, however, standards still remain a difficult problem that will need concerted attention to remedy.

In its role as the national coordinator of water information, BoM commented on the significant advantage in the water domain over other types of environmental information in that there was an existing infrastructure of agencies collecting information for their own business needs. These business needs also tended to be similar, with similar drivers, standards, techniques and technology being used, giving water information a ‘base platform’ from which to leverage coordination.

Since water information was still a distributed system, however, there was significant variability even when using the same tools. In some cases, agencies using the same database would use different standards and metadata. Thus, one of the biggest challenges in aggregation has been in understanding

29 Australian Government Information Management Office, 2006. Australian Government Information Interoperability Framework. Canberra: DoFD.

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the information provided and ensuring there are sufficient descriptors. Simply developing new standards would only affect future data collected, and so significant investment would be needed to adjust old data to meet new standards. Rather than investing in improving old data, a decision was made to inform users about the nature of the data, a function fulfilled using metadata.

Peak bodies and communities of practice are often responsible for implementing standards for their specific domain, but these may not have widespread take-up. DAFF noted that there is a need to encourage the development and application of nationally appropriate standards, and considered that this issue had been offset by investment in national standards and protocols for the four thematic areas covered by the National Coordinating Committees (see Section 3.1.4). These committees had an important role in developing specifications for datasets and encouraging the maintenance of standards in data collection.

For others, the problem is not usually one of absent standards but an abundance of different standards developed in isolation, which may or may not overlap. Resolving these differences into one standard, or at least interoperable standards, is the challenge – especially across jurisdictions. A proliferation of standards is also a difficulty in the health area, where working towards a single agreed common set of standards is the goal.

Poorly thought out acquisition, where information is requested or collected without any processes in place to use it, is another common problem. An example was given to the review of regulations that required certain information to be reported to a department with no clear purpose or use for that information. This is clearly frustrating to those stakeholders required to report when the data are not subsequently seen to be used. In some cases, these data are not used due to the lack of standards for ensuring quality. It may also be important to have a conceptual model prior to collection, describing the business activity for which the information is to be used.

5.1.4 Information and records management Most agencies appear to decide to store information based on their statutory role, records management policies and processes, and program needs. When information is judged no longer to be useful it is often archived, unless licensing restrictions prevent this. DAFF, for instance, noted that it is moving to warehousing for a large proportion of its data holdings and extending metadata to all datasets to include usability, licensing and method of access.

For many agencies, environmental information storage, analysis, and sharing pose major technical infrastructure challenges which will only increase in the next decade and beyond. To address these issues, Geoscience Australia is embarking on a review of enterprise data storage systems because reliable, affordable and scalable storage systems will be required to support the scientific processing and analysis of large data volumes.

Several agencies suggested the possibility of moving towards shared data holdings in a facility such as the National Computational Infrastructure – another NCRIS project. While these agencies argued that such a move will increase the use and effectiveness of government-held data, they noted the temporary funding of this facility and suggested that a secure operational foundation is necessary to ensure the permanence of the arrangement.

While storage solutions for datasets are being sought, information in the broad sense includes paper reports. Across the Australian Government, many regulatory and grant reporting processes are still paper-based, making it difficult to harvest the environmental information contained in them for reuse. Following paper-based records management practices these are generally added to physical files, including any digital information on disks. Searching for content in paper-based files relies on descriptive titles in file management systems, which may not always be a good indicator of the kind of information that is stored.

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The review heard concerns, too, that since the advent of email and drive storage, information is often stored on hard drives or in email folders rather than filed according to records management practices. A recent Australian National Audit Office report on Records Management in the Australian Public Service30 found that many electronic systems that were not records management systems – such as shared folders, email and certain electronic business systems – were being used to store and manage records even though they did not have suitable records management functionality. This report recommended that agencies remove electronic systems, such as shared folders, that provide an alternative place to create, edit and keep records.

The same report noted that the need for robust digital records management is becoming ever more pressing, particularly given the cost of managing paper records, the application of new and changing technologies to improve programs and service delivery, and the release of the Australian Government’s Digital Transition Policy in 2011. This policy requires the National Archives of Australia to transition to an Electronic Document Record Management System (EDRMS) and to help all other Australian Government agencies to do so. Despite this need being recognised for some time, introduction of EDRMSs across agencies has been slow; in 2009, of 138 Australian Government agencies and bodies, less than 30 per cent managed the majority of their records digitally, though more than half reported having an EDRMS.

DSEWPaC noted that its lack of an EDRMS is the single biggest impediment to reviewing environmental information holdings outside of spatial data. Other agencies that had implemented an EDRMS noted that while it captured reports, there were still ontological issues with these systems. Such impediments occur when an EDRMS lacks a framework for modelling, mapping and organising information and therefore restricts the ability to search. Essentially, the EDRMS then becomes an electronic filing cabinet – useful for the reduction of paper-based storage, but with no advantages over paper for harvesting information. The key to resolving ontological or metadata issues is considering the information that is generated at all stages of the lifecycle of the business process. This in turn requires a conceptual model and understanding of the business processes that are undertaken in each agency and a realised architecture to capture that information and make it accessible.

5.2 Recommendations

In making recommendations to address the technical barriers preventing the effective use of environmental information, we have been mindful of the need for whole-of government action. While we consider it important to reaffirm the key role of the central coordinating authority in maintaining appropriate standards, we also note the crucial role agencies themselves have in managing authoritative standards. As such, we see BoM’s role as complementing the important work on standards already undertaken by line agencies, with the central coordinating authority developing and maintaining standards only where it is best placed to do so.

We have also noted the importance of integrating biophysical, social and economic data to answer complex policy questions (see Section 1.3) and the increasing importance of working within international standards frameworks. Hence, we suggest that BoM should consult and work with ABS as necessary in the development and maintenance of standards. Such collaboration would provide benefit from ABS’s experience in social and economic data and leverage its legislated role in setting standards.

Finally, we endorse the move to adopt EDRMSs across the Australian Government, but caution that such systems will need to provide for the harvesting of information from within filed documents if full use of the information asset is to be achieved.

30 Australian National Audit Office, 2012. Audit Report No.53 2011-12 Records Management in the Australian Public Service. Canberra: ANAO.

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5.2.1 Affirm the central coordinating authority’s role in addressing standards In line with our recommendation to improve the central coordination of environmental information by BoM, we recommend confirmation of its responsibilities in technical coordination to:

harmonise, resolve and maintain authoritative standards for environmental information, following guidance from PAGE on the appropriate priorities and timelines

develop new standards where applicable.

5.2.2 Promote the use of machine-readable informationWe have outlined the need to make information within agencies interoperable, discoverable and accessible. We recommend the following actions to achieve this objective:

Continue to promote the use of machine-readable information, and provision of the technical systems to support implementation.

Develop and use an architectural understanding of business processes to capture information for reuse.

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6. Legal arrangements

6.1 The challenges

Legal arrangements for environmental information can form significant barriers to sharing information within agencies, between agencies, between jurisdictions and with the public. The majority of the barriers brought to the attention of the review were in the arena of licensing and intellectual property restrictions, with a few issues also arising from other legislative requirements.

6.1.1 Creative Commons licensing In 2007, the Australian Government endorsed as policy the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Intellectual Property Principles for Australian Government Agencies.31 All agencies were to have adopted these by July 2008. The Principles called for the use of Creative Commons Attribution as the default licence for public sector information. This is the most open of the Creative Commons licences and allows others to distribute and alter content, including for commercial use, so long as the original creator is credited.

The primary vehicle for the uptake of Creative Commons licensing across government is the Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework32 (AusGOAL). The AusGOAL initiative was developed and funded by all Australian governments through the Cross Jurisdictional Chief Information Officers Committee. It aims to assist government and related sectors to facilitate open access to publicly funded information. Despite this, use of Creative Commons licensing across the Australian Government for environmental information is variable.

Indeed, the interim findings of OAIC’s Open Public Sector Information: Government in Transition report suggested that 28 per cent of Australian Government agencies identified ‘Principle 1: Open access to information – a default position’ as the most challenging to implement33 (second behind ‘Principle 5: Discoverable and useable information’, which 30 per cent of agencies found the most challenging). The findings also indicated that fewer than 1 in 10 agencies have a default position of releasing data under open licensing terms that facilitate public reuse. In addition, a number of agencies questioned the adequacy of the Creative Commons licence. The full report was due for release in November 2012 (see also Section 1.2).

Even where agencies are using Creative Commons licensing they are often hampered by legacy licensing issues. These arise where environmental information they hold was obtained from data providers prior to the introduction of open licensing principles, may have been mismanaged such that the data have been separated from their licensing conditions, or may have been provided under strict conditions that contradict the open government framework (states, territories and other suppliers are not bound by Australian Government principles).

The most common barriers to implementing open access licensing for environmental information are communication and culture, with licensing a legal manifestation of these barriers. AusGOAL noted that organisations and individuals holding important environmental datasets often refer to themselves as custodians. However, such references confuse the notion of custodianship with ownership, and result in access to data being managed on subjective terms. This can lead to custodians, either in government or outside it, using cost recovery arguments, privacy arguments, or concerns around environmental protection to place restrictive licences on environmental information.

Increasingly the Open Data Commons suite of licences (including the Open Database Licence and the Database Content Licence) may be more appropriate for licensing data. Open Data Commons licences are focused on the specific legal issues that can be involved with databases and data, as opposed to

31 Attorney-General’s Department, 2008. Statement of Intellectual Policy Principles. Canberra: AGD.32 www.ausgoal.gov.au.33 Office of the Information Commissioner, 2012. Open Public Sector Information: government in transition. Canberra: OAIC

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broader information types such as written reports or other information products. These Open Data Commons licences ensure a similar level of accessibility and openness as the Creative Commons licences do for other types of information.

6.1.2 Making environmental information publicly availableFailure to share environmental information publicly has led to duplication of datasets in many cases. An example from the spatial arena of road mapping by the private sector for private GPS (global positioning system) use demonstrates this. Road mapping datasets are held by government but not publically released, leading private enterprises to undertake their own mapping activities. This in turn has flow-on effects for standardisation, with each company undertaking the mapping to its own internal standards. For spatial information this may be solved by the Australia New Zealand Spatial Marketplace, which will enforce uniform Creative Commons licensing. The degree to which this solution will influence environmental information is variable, however, as spatial agencies across jurisdictions may or may not have a strong connection to environmental agencies.

Some concerns were expressed about sharing certain environmental information publicly. In biodiversity data, sensitivities about the location of threatened species sometimes lead to licensing restrictions. At the present time, the protection of threatened species is a key remaining reason given by information providers for such restrictive licensing, where previously commercial value was mostly cited as a reason to restrict third-party use. Respondents to the review noted that, in some cases, placing restrictions on such data has reached the level of a ‘tradition’ and may even be fulfilling a lapsed legislative or management requirement.

There is a risk that non-sensitive data may be inadvertently restricted in the attempt to prevent the dissemination of threatened species data. DSEWPaC noted that Tasmania’s recent review of sensitive listed threatened species data reduced a large list to only four entries, and suggested that active review processes by other states may have similar results. Specifically restricting records, rather than entire datasets, following such reviews may facilitate greater access to more data. While states and territories are major custodians of these data, DSEWPaC also noted the contribution of non-government organisations in this field, most of which also use licensing to restrict further sharing of their data.

6.1.3 JurisdictionsThe biggest problem for environmental information licensing comes in the interaction between the states and territories, which collect and hold significant environmental information, and the Australian Government, which obtains this information from them either as a national aggregator (for example, this is often DSEWPaC’s role) or for one-off uses in policies or programs.

When data are obtained from the jurisdictions a range of licensing restrictions may be placed on the information, from single-use restrictions to a licence that allows sharing across the Australian Government but not necessarily publicly. When the review inquired as to the problems this may cause in sharing information among agencies, a range of views and experiences were related. As it currently stands, though, it is clear that complying with restrictive licensing arrangements can result in a number of administrative overheads that could be avoided by moving to more open licensing arrangements.

An informative example in biodiversity data is the difference in holdings between the Atlas of Living Australia and DSEWPaC. While the Atlas has been able to harness a significant amount of data, this remains a subset of that held by DSEWPaC, which is unable to share the remaining data with the Atlas because of restrictive-use licences imposed by providers preventing sharing with third parties.

In some cases, obtaining a whole-of-government licence has proved so expensive it has negatively affected projects or even halted them. The Commonwealth Spatial Data Integration pilot project, led by the Department of Human Services in partnership with Geoscience Australia and ABS, is an example. The pilot ran from 2009 to 2010 and aimed to implement a coordinated approach to the

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integration and sharing of spatially enabled Australian Government administrative data to support social inclusion initiatives. The initial intention had been to obtain a whole-of-government licence but it was significantly cheaper for individual agencies to obtain single (or even multiple licences) than to purchase a whole-of-government licence.

There is an economic rationale for the restrictions applied to environmental information shared with the Australian Government. In some cases, particularly in areas such as remote sensing, data may be costly to acquire and maintain. For many state and territory agencies that hold such data, the cost falls on a small section of that agency which may then be vulnerable to funding reductions in the broader agency and government context. While in many cases these providers are still willing to share such information freely across government, they rely on its sale to the private sector for cost recovery. Thus, if government were to make the information they receive public, it would undercut their revenue.

A clear example of the difficulties encountered was seen in the recent work undertaken by DCCEE on the National Coastal Digital Elevation Model. The model was required to underpin work on adaptation to sea level rise. There was no national dataset for coastal digital elevation, just a patchwork of data covering only some areas that had been collected to different standards and stored in different formats. In resolving this into a national dataset useful for its policy purposes DCCEE was instrumental in driving the development of a National Elevation Data Framework.

A key outcome of the acquisition program for the National Coastal Digital Elevation Model was to establish consistent licensing arrangements across the datasets used to form a national picture. The difficulty of resolving these issues is manifest in the three tiers of licensing used to provide different levels of access to the data. The tiers of licensing enable data to be made available to the public under Creative Commons Attribution licensing for ‘fundamental’ national data; government access to data from Geoscience Australia requiring a data licence agreement and restricted government access requiring a third-party licence agreement for state agency or other third-party data.

The review was told the licensing that underpins the National Coastal Digital Elevation Model allows DCCEE to release the products of that information, provided those products are significantly derived and that they align with agreements on data resolution. This solution protects the interests of the jurisdictions in maintaining the resale value of the data.

DSEWPaC described a pragmatic approach taken to licensing in the absence of broader whole-of-government arrangements. Where Creative Commons licensing is not possible a cascading approach is taken, trying first for whole-of-government (all jurisdictions); then Australian Government; portfolio; department; and finally project-specific licences. The department also noted that a whole-of-government approach (whether interjurisdictional or restricted to the Australian Government) to licensing would reduce clause checking in agreements and focus on specific data issues and exceptions to a general rule.

Where information is purchased from non-government sources, use of collaborative procurement panels may help to stop duplication of purchasing as well as to allow departments and jurisdictions to work together on licensing issues. An example of one such is the Optical, Geospatial, Radar and Elevation panel established by Geoscience Australia to streamline and improve the way earth observation imagery is acquired (see also Section 3.1.2).

Previous to the establishment of this panel, commercial providers of imagery licensed their data to one agency, encouraging the sale of the same imagery to multiple departments. By working together, the agencies involved (now eight, including the ACT Planning and Land Authority) have been able to negotiate a number of levels of licensing. Purchasing a more flexible and open level of licensing often costs more, but the agencies registered with the panel gain the benefit of awareness of what others

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hold or are purchasing and may pool funds to buy a more open licence if it is of benefit to their business.

The jurisdictions are beginning to initiate licensing reforms as part of AusGOAL’s cross-jurisdictional implementation. The Queensland Government has already mandated AusGOAL, while the South Australian Government has endorsed the framework and has been driving implementation for more than three years. The Victorian and Western Australian governments are in the process of endorsing AusGOAL and the remaining jurisdictions are in the early stages of implementation. The cross-jurisdictional take-up of AusGOAL should help to remove some of the licensing restrictions imposed on environmental information by the jurisdictions. Queensland and New South Wales have already released limited sets of environmental data under Creative Commons licensing.

6.1.4 Repurposing informationSeveral respondents to the review offered examples of licensing restrictions being used to prevent alternative uses of information. AusGOAL noted that important datasets are often created with only a single project in mind and without considering whether the data may be suitable for more than one purpose. Any intellectual property restrictions in the dataset are therefore tailored solely to that project’s needs, which may be restricted. If other possible uses of the data are addressed early on in project planning, a significant amount of data could be made available for reuse.

DSEWPaC noted that this is a concern for legacy taxonomic artwork where the copyright restricts the use of the material beyond its original purpose – this may even be as restrictive as allowing for publication in a certain volume (e.g. Flora of Australia) but not allowing use of the artwork in an online version of the same volume. The State of Environment reports have also suffered from such licensing restrictions where data exist but cannot be reused for the report.

6.1.5 Government-funded researchMany departments that work with environmental information do so by funding primary research. Requiring publicly funded researchers to generate scientific information for public release is contrary to the standard rules of many scientific journals, which insist that researchers must not have published their data elsewhere. DSEWPaC commented that the National Environmental Research Program encounters these issues often. In many cases the journals are owned by international publishing houses and so the influence of the Australian Government’s open licensing principles is minimal. The research councils of the United Kingdom and the European Union have both recently published new open access policies that go some way to addressing this barrier, while the United States of America and Australia are both still considering the issue.

Open licensing is also being considered in the context of broader intellectual property issues surrounding government-funded research. In 2011, the Commonwealth Committee on Innovation established a working group to revise the 2001 National Principles of Intellectual Property Management for Publicly Funded Research34. One of the stated purposes in revising the principles is to align them better with open government.

A strong focus in the revised principles that were circulated for stakeholder comment in May 2012 is on exploiting research-generated intellectual property through patents and commercialisation. There is less of a focus, however, on how open licensing options can also assist with maximising returns on public research investment. The review heard concern that this approach could be perceived as an endorsement of the restrictive licensing practices still adopted by some agencies, particularly in environmental information.

34 Australian Research Council, 2001. National Principles of Intellectual Property Management for Publicly Funded Research. Canberra: ARC.

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6.1.6 Legislative restrictionsLegislative restrictions other than licensing may also form barriers to sharing. In other information domains this can be a significant issue, with legislation such as the Privacy Act 1988 restricting the types of data that can be shared. Few agencies identified this as a significant problem for environmental information, but DIISRTE stated that the information collected by AusIndustry, which may contain some environmental information, is regulated by the Public Service Act 1999, the Public Service Regulations, the Privacy Act 1988, the Crimes Act 1914, the Criminal Code Act 1995 and general law.

In general, information collected from AusIndustry applicants is of a commercial nature that can only be used for the purposes of the specific program. As such, information can rarely be shared across programs within DIISRTE, or with other agencies, even in aggregated form. DIISRTE noted that it was restricted from accessing other agencies’ data by similar protocols. AusGOAL commented that where there are legislative restrictions that permit departments to be selective about providing environmental information there is generally little guidance in the legislation to assist agencies in making decisions that take into account the broader open government context.

In a similar manner, some providers of data to the National Conservation Lands Database use the Privacy Act 1988 to restrict data where it may detail a covenant on private property. However, the use of privacy measures in this way by data providers will become an issue for the government when managing carbon trading, as knowing where investments in carbon and offsets are being made will be necessary to prevent ‘double dipping’.

In order to resolve such impasses, OAIC has noted that de-identification is a useful technique for agencies and organisations to safeguard the privacy of individuals and the confidentiality of commercial-in-confidence material when providing or releasing information. Used effectively, de-identification has the potential to balance the protections intended by different legislative restrictions with the benefits of enabling valuable data and information to be openly shared and used.

6.2 Recommendations

Consistent with Australian Government policy, in all possible cases licences purchased for data should be for whole-of-government and ongoing use, allowing release under Creative Commons Attribution licence (or Open Data Commons database licences where appropriate). Among other benefits to be gained through open information, removing the administrative overheads imposed by restrictive licensing arrangements will be a major benefit of adopting this approach.

Jurisdictional business models vary and often change – where the Australian Government is the major funder of information it can and should influence practice towards open licensing. While we recognise the importance of agencies working together collaboratively to ensure effective information sharing, removing barriers caused by licensing arrangements is an important step to facilitate this.

To support an open licensing approach, any Australian Government agencies considering acquiring environmental information should be required to consult with the central coordinating authority to assess the potential for reuse across government. If clear repurposing opportunities are identified, the ability subsequently to upgrade the data licence to whole-of-government use when needed should be a minimum requirement during the initial procurement process. This requirement would be in line with the Commonwealth Procurement Rule on value for money. For situations where data are purchased, particularly from commercial sources, the establishment of procurement panels by the central coordinating authority (see Section 3.2.2) may assist in implementing such a requirement.

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6.2.1 Remove barriers to open licensingTo address the barriers preventing full use of open licensing in environmental information, we recommend these further measures.

Produce a guide to the AusGOAL licensing framework for users of environmental information through collaboration between EIAG and AusGOAL.

Address legacy licensing issues by having agencies audit their information licensing arrangements with the aid of AGIMO with a view to allowing full use of the AusGOAL licensing framework.

De-identify information when privacy is a concern. Focus on restricting individual records of sensitive data, rather than applying restrictions to entire

datasets. Consult with the central coordinating authority on the potential for reuse when acquiring

environmental information with licensing restrictions. Work with the central coordinating authority to identify sources of ‘top-up’ funding when the cost

of obtaining whole-of-government and ongoing use licences is prohibitive. This may come through PAGE investment, through central coordinating authority funds, or through collaboration with other interested agencies.

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7. A whole-of-government system In recommending ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Australian Government’s environmental information activity, it has become clear to the review that a whole-of-government system is required if wide-ranging and lasting reform is to be achieved. To inform this vision of a comprehensive system for environmental information, the review has had regard to best practice approaches in different sectors as well as other Australian and international jurisdictions.

7.1 Examples from other sectors

Over the past couple of decades the health information sector has undergone reform similar to that which is now necessary in environmental information. The situation in health is arguably even more complex, with more agencies in operation and a funding delivery system that is split between the Australian, state and territory governments and between the public and private sectors. Nevertheless, since the early 1990s, national agencies have collaborated to improve national statistics relating to the health of Australians.

The 1993 National Health Information Agreement aimed to improve cooperation on the development, collection and exchange of data and to improve access to uniform health information. The latest version of this was signed in December 2011 by the health authorities of the states and territories; AIHW; ABS; DoHA; the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care; the Department of Veterans’ Affairs; and the Department of Human Services.

The Agreement provides a framework to ensure the availability of nationally consistent, high-quality health information. The Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council directs work under the Agreement, including setting national priorities, endorsing a work program and addressing any high-level issues that arise. The National Health Information and Performance Principal Committee manages the development of performance frameworks, National Minimum Data Sets and the majority of other national health information requirements, excluding those managed by ABS. Both the Council and the Committee are multi-jurisdictional bodies. ABS develops and provides statistics and statistical advice while AIHW collates, cleanses and holds the majority of multi-jurisdictional administrative health data sets. The Commonwealth and state and territory departments are responsible for data collection in accordance with national standards and protocols. Figure 7.1 (below) illustrates these reporting relationships.

The National Health Information and Performance Principal Committee has responsibility for:

endorsing the workplans of its various standing and subcommittees endorsing national information standards advising the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council on national priorities managing the standing and subcommittees overseeing the development of standards, national datasets, best practice data specifications and

informatics standards.

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AIHW has responsibility for receiving, cleaning and disseminating health information. This means it:

manages data develops statistical standards (with ABS) provides quality control houses the metadata registry produces authoritative reports on this information for public consumption and policy purposes undertakes research and provides data to third parties for research and analysis assists parties to the agreement provides secretariat for the National Health Information Standards and Statistics Committee.

Figure 7.1 Health sector reporting relationships (adapted from diagram at www.aihw.gov.au/nhissc)

There are many parallels to be drawn between this model and the revised and improved environmental information system that we are recommending. The Policy Advisory Group on Environment (PAGE) that we recommend would form a similar body to the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, providing high-level guidance on policy priorities. The Australian Government Environmental Information Advisory Group (EIAG), reconstituted, would become an equivalent of the National Health Information and Performance Principal Committee, with similar responsibilities. The number and intention of any standing or subcommittees that EIAG may form can be determined as need arises.

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SCoHStanding Council on Health

AHMACAustralian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council

NHIPPCNational Health

Information & Performance

Principal Committee

Ministers Conference/Advisory Council/Principal

CommitteeStanding CommitteeOther entities/advisory groups

HWPCHealth

Workforce Principal

Committee

MHSCMental Health

Information Strategy

Subcommittee

MHD&APCMental

Health/Drug & Alcohol

AHPPCAustralian

Health Protection

HPCHospitals Principal

Committee

CC&PHPCCommunity Care and

Population Health

*

NEHTANational E-

Health Transition Authority

PHIDGPopulation

Health Information

Development Group

* NHIPPCNational Health Information & Performance Principal Committee

SCPRStanding Committee on

Performance & Reporting

NAGATSIHIDNational Advisory Group on Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health

Information Development

NHISSCNational Health

Information Standards & Statistics Committee

NHCIOFNational Health Chief Information Officers

Forum

The role of the central coordinating authority for environmental information, as we have described it, is similar to that of AIHW in the health information system. A major difference is that BoM does not currently have a legislative mandate to underpin this role, except for its responsibilities in water and climate.

Two other examples are relevant to our recommendation to establish PAGE. First, we were directed to a whole-of-government coordination approach operating in the assessment of Australia’s overseas aid programs. The Development Effectiveness Steering Committee is a cross-portfolio deputy secretary-level committee that assesses development aid spending proposals from relevant portfolios. The committee provides guidance on coordinating whole-of-government aid expenditure and monitoring the results and effectiveness of aid programs. It is supported in its work by the cross-portfolio Development Effectiveness Working Group. An Independent Evaluation Committee was recently created to provide additional independent advice and oversight to the Development Effectiveness Steering Committee and the Office of Development Effectiveness. Relationships among these groups are illustrated in Figure 7.2.

Figure 7.2 Relationships of the Development Effectiveness Steering Committee (adapted from OECD 2010. Evaluation in Development Agencies. Paris: OECD)

PAGE may wish to consider this approach as its operational procedures develop over time. In such an arrangement, PAGE would function in a similar manner to the Development Effectiveness Steering Committee, as the senior inter–agency committee of officials with oversight of the Australian Government’s environmental information activity. The reconstituted EIAG would perform a similar role

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Office of Development Effectiveness (ODE)

Carries out or commissions thematic, large program and country-strategy evaluations.

Runs independent spot checks of agency quality reporting systems. ODE products feed into agency reporting processes.

Development Effectiveness Steering Committee (DESC)

Advises ODE and the Minister on work priorities, new country strategies and

budget proposals

Independent Evaluation Committee

Provides independent

expert evaluation

advice to the DESC and

oversees the work of ODE in

planning, commissioning, managing and

delivering a high quality

evaluation program

Minister for Foreign Affairs

Development Effectiveness

Working Group (DEWG)

Director-General AusAIDChair of DESC

to the Development Effectiveness Working Group but, unlike that group, the agencies represented on EIAG would differ from PAGE, reflecting EIAG’s technical focus. The review has not yet seen a need to establish an independent advisory body similar to the Independent Evaluation Committee, but this may also be something for consideration once the system is in operation.

Second, the Australian Research Committee was established to provide integrated and strategic advice on future research investments, as recommended by the Focusing Australia’s Publicly Funded Research Review35. This committee is chaired by the Chief Scientist and consists of a senior Commonwealth officials group; an expert advisory group, including the chief executive officers of the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council and the National Security Adviser; and a group of publicly funded research agencies and other organisations responsible for delivering science and research funded by the Australian Government, including CSIRO.

The Australian Research Committee is currently preparing a National Research Investment Plan which, among other things, sets out a series of National Research Aspirations that replace the National Research Priorities. There is an intention outlined in this document for strategic priorities for research investment to be set. This model has resonance with our intentions for PAGE.

7.2 Examples from other jurisdictions

The review looked for examples of coordinated environmental information activity in other government contexts, both internationally and among the states and territories, but little of relevance was found. The European Environment Agency is one example of a body established through legislation to provide reports on the environment. As part of its role the agency assesses the impact of environmental legislation across Europe and provides analyses to policy makers. The agency represents a well-coordinated central data authority that is responding to information needs set down in European Union and international environmental legislation.

The European Environment Agency was established in 1990 along with the European Environment Information and Observation Network. It produces a five-yearly report on the state and outlook of the European environment; thematic and sectoral assessments; analyses of the effectiveness of policy measures; and forward studies on the impacts of globalisation on Europe’s environment and resources. Reference to this model could aid the central coordinating authority in developing its role.

At the state and territory level within Australia, we were not made aware of any cooperative environmental information system operating at a whole-of-government level. We note, however, the recent work in Western Australia towards this goal. Two reports released in August 2012 echo many of the suggestions made here, albeit in a more restricted thematic domain (biodiversity). The first of these, the Shared Environmental Assessment Knowledge Taskforce36 report describes a model that will organise and integrate information from environmental assessments so that it can be reused and made available at various scales. Working with Western Australia to progress a joint pilot project on this is one of our recommendations aimed at helping the Australian Government to come to a similar capability (see Recommendation 2.2.3).

The second, Pathway to an Enhanced Western Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Knowledge System37, makes a case for creating a biodiversity knowledge system for the state. This would aggregate knowledge from government departments (including assessment knowledge that would be covered by the Shared Environmental Assessment Knowledge system) but also from scientific institutions such as

35 Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, 2011. Focusing Australia’s Publicly Funded Research Review: Maximising the Innovation Dividend. Canberra: DIISR.36 Shared Environmental Assessment Knowledge Taskforce, 2011. Shared Environmental Assessment Knowledge Taskforce Report. Perth: EPA37 Australian Venture Consultants, 2012. Pathway to an Enhanced Western Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Knowledge System. Preliminary Assessment of Issues, Challenges, Capabilities and Key Design Considerations.

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CSIRO, the museum, herbarium and zoo and the universities. This report outlines the benefits of such a system not just to government, but also to stakeholders such as environmental non-government organisations and the minerals industry.

7.3 A vision for environmental information

Reforming the environmental information activity of the Australian Government is essential to support the complex challenges of environmental policy. Information management principles and practices are generally undergoing reform across government. Improved information and communications technology and increased enthusiasm for evidence-based policy are driving this trend. Recognition of the value of public sector information and its potential for use outside of government has also been a key development.

Within the broader landscape of information reform, environmental information requires particular attention. In general, it has lagged behind economic and social information in its organisation and availability across government. There are unique challenges in environmental information resulting from the organic, rather than strategic, growth of this asset. A lack of agreed standards, unclear roles and responsibilities across government, and legacy licensing issues restricting sharing are problems that plague this sector and which must be addressed.

Throughout this report we have suggested ways to reform some key processes of government that will remove obstacles to sharing between agencies. Together, these reforms should help to create a system that works at a whole-of-government level; to answer major policy priorities; to harness existing environmental information; to invest in shared and enduring needs across government; and ultimately to build an agile system that can be responsive to policy requirements across several time scales.

A graphic representation of how these various reforms could function as an integrated system is provided at Figure 7.3 (below). The diagram shows how the system could address shared whole-of-government priorities through PAGE, EIAG and the central coordinating authority; how individual user agencies will consult with the central coordinating authority on their particular environmental information needs; and how the environmental information components of new policy proposals could be accounted for and vetted by the central coordinating authority to ensure savings and prevent duplication. This system makes a distinction between the roles of agencies as both providers and users of environmental information, noting that this is not a firm distinction and many agencies will perform both roles at different times. For example, embedded bureaus are represented on this diagram in their role as facilitators of information for their departments. However, many of these bureaus also hold and maintain significant datasets; in this latter role, they would be considered part of the provider group.

The creation of PAGE will be necessary to provide senior leadership, set the strategic direction for environmental information reform, and prioritise whole-of-government policy needs for environmental information. DSEWPaC’s role in chairing this group is fundamental, as it is the portfolio agency with the greatest engagement in environmental policy. It is also necessary for the central agencies to sit on this group to provide the necessary whole-of-government perspective.

EIAG is a major reform of the NPEI. This body is chaired by the Director of Meteorology, provides advice to BoM on technical matters, and should continue its work. Consideration should be given, however, to paring back its membership to enable a more streamlined process of consideration of the key issues required to meet PAGE-defined strategic policy objectives.

EIAG workplans to address environmental information reform at a whole-of-government level should be approved by PAGE. The projects in the workplan should then be undertaken by the EIAG member

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agency or agencies best placed to undertake such work or outsourced. Funding for the projects in the workplan should be released by PAGE following its consideration and approval.

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Figure 7.3 Proposed Australian Government environmental information governance arrangements

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Policy Advisory Group on Environment (PAGE)

Chaired by the Department of Sustainability, Environm

ent, Water, Population

and Comm

unities

Determines w

hole-of-government policy priorities for environm

ental information activity, com

missions audits

of current EI activity in priority areas, approves and releases funding for the EIAG workplan and provides

strategic oversight

Environmental

Information Advisory

Group (EIAG)Chaired by the Bureau of

Meteorology

Develops workplan to address

PAGE-nominated priorities,

delegates projects to appropriate agencies and provides technical advice to the PAGE and the CCA

Central Coordinating Authority (CCA)

Bureau of Meteorology

Maintains a catalogue of

environmental inform

ation holdings, endorses authoritative

datasets and facilitates access through building infrastructure

Cabinet

Department

of Finance and

Deregulation

Australian Government Agencies

Embedded Bureaus /

Chief Information

Offi

cers(Facilitators)

NPPs

presented to Cabinet

CCA participates as an observer at PAGE m

eetings and reports any duplicative

spend avoided

EIAG workplan

submitted for PAGE approval

Whole-of-govt priorities

comm

unicated to EIAG

PAGE receives ongoing funding and reports to Cabinet on EI priorities, projects and effi

ciencies through the Minister for Sustainability, Environm

ent, Water, Population and

Comm

unities

EIAG oversees collaborative and/or individual projects to address shared

needs following PAGE approval

DoFD consults w

ith the CCA

on EI spends in N

PPs

CCA advises on individual EI needs for user agencies, via em

bedded bureaus or CIO

s

NPPs subm

itted

to DoFD for EI vetti

ng and revised if savings

are found

ProvidersProvider agencies undertake projects, m

aintain datasets and standards and m

anage infrastructure nodes

Users

User agencies consult the CCA on individual

information needs, account for EI in N

PPs and report EI spending in Portfolio Budget Statem

ents and annual reports

CCA reports on com

mon EI

user enquiries and progress

on infrastructure, standards and

accounts

Providers make

data available to the CCA

EAIG provides advice on technical

requirements

to underpin priority projects

The role of BoM as the central coordinating authority for environmental information extends beyond responsibility for EIAG. Under the NPEI, BoM is also responsible for setting and implementing standards; constructing a National Environmental Information Infrastructure; and identifying fundamental datasets. This work would best be staged through time, based on advice from PAGE on priorities and from EIAG on the necessary underpinnings of current projects.

We suggest that BoM’s role should include maintaining a catalogue of environmental information held across government, to be made available for checking prior to any procurement. We also suggest that BoM’s role should include establishing panels to assist agencies in acquiring information and products, particularly where there are significant private sector products or data available. Where BoM notes multiple requests from individual agencies for similar environmental information, it may report this to EIAG as a possible emerging priority for consideration by EIAG and PAGE.

It is also necessary to resolve the roles and responsibilities of agencies involved in environmental information activity across the Australian Government. At present there is significant overlap, resulting in duplication and inefficiency. We suggest that this could be appropriately considered by PAGE, which may recommend a clarification of arrangements to government, informed by the advice of EIAG.

Internally, most agencies need to reform their environmental information management practices. This consideration is being addressed at agency level according to broad principles set by OAIC and with support from AGIMO and others. We note that making use of the information that is generated by the normal business activity of agencies requires a good architectural understanding of that activity, which is lacking in many agencies. We therefore recommend that agencies consider mapping their business activity which, together with implementation of consistent standards, will allow for more widespread reuse of information generated by business-as-usual activities.

We have also noted several agencies with internal analytic capacities or bureaus. The strength of these bureaus is that they can provide responsive, tailored solutions to a department’s information needs. We note that the establishment of a broker unit to liaise between bureaus and their users has recently occurred in some departments. This has been generally considered successful in better linking policy needs with information activity and we suggest that it could be easily replicated.

We further suggest that these internal bureaus could be productively harnessed by BoM to form an interlinked and embedded network for environmental information. This would assist it in improving coordination of information holdings and activities across the agencies.

Funding arrangements must work to underpin the vision for this system. We have recommended changes to the current arrangements that will aim to identify what agencies are spending on environmental information; stop duplication of expenditure; increase efficiency; ensure that agencies value environmental information as an asset; and offset government investment in projects to meet shared priority needs through PAGE.

Resolving licensing issues that restrict the use and sharing of environmental information is also necessary. We note that much work in this area has already been undertaken as part of the broader information reform agenda, but suggest that EIAG should work with AusGOAL to ensure that the environmental information domain is not left behind.

Legislation to establish BoM’s role as the central coordinating authority may also need to be considered, but this is currently not the most pressing issue in environmental information reform. There may be benefits in pursuing legislation at a later stage and in the light of experience with operation of the new system, particularly if the government wants to leave open the possibility of establishing a new entity to take on the role of central coordinating authority in the future.

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Finally there is the question of how the Australian Government should work with the states and territories. This must be addressed, especially given the reliance of the Commonwealth on environmental information collected by the other jurisdictions. The Council of Australian Governments is the appropriate venue to work towards developing a fully integrated information system. In this context we note that the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 reform process may provide opportunities to improve cooperation and collaboration on environmental information. The national plan being developed under the NPEI initiative should also include a strategy to engage the states and territories.

7.4 Conclusion

We note the timeliness of the reform process outlined here. An historic opportunity is almost certain to emerge in the current decade with the price and performance of ICT continuing to improve by orders of magnitude. Storage cost barriers may well decline substantially. Real-time accession of environmental information will accelerate dramatically, and modelling of whole-of-nation and whole-of-region environmental systems will become both possible and affordable. If the Australian Government is prepared for these possibilities then the nation will benefit greatly through improved management, both of its information assets and of its environmental heritage; however, if we are not ready with the right information then Australia risks lagging behind.

Australia deserves an environmental information system that is responsive to policy and which reuses the information generated by its agencies efficiently and effectively for improved environmental management. The NPEI has made the first steps towards this visionary outcome. With patience and focus, these initial developments can result in Australia becoming a world leader.

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AcknowledgementsWe acknowledge with gratitude the input we have received from many individuals from across the agencies listed in Table 2. These contributions were without exception constructive, considered and useful, and have deeply informed this report. Steve Morton also thanks David Glynne Jones for his wise advice.

Within DSEWPaC we were superbly supported by Leah Schwartz, Dennis Leo, Edward Ho-Shon, Brad Moore, Lisa Teasdale, Melissa Roberts and Peter Lyon. Sebastian Lang, Geoff Richardson and Kathryn Collins provided excellent high-level guidance and direction.

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Appendix 1: Terms of referenceThe Australian Government generates and uses a wide range of environmental information, including information about ecosystems, natural resources and our interactions with the environment. The Australian Government is developing a National Plan for Environmental Information to improve the quality and coverage of this environmental information. The review of Australian Government environmental information activity will contribute to the development of the National Plan for Environmental Information by assessing current activity and identifying opportunities for improving how the Australian Government conducts its environmental information business. This includes how the Australian Government acquires or generates, manages, shares, provides access to and uses environmental information.

Terms of reference

1. The review will analyse the efficiency, effectiveness and appropriateness of the Australian Government’s current practices relating to environmental information. The review will assess:

a. how the Australian Government decides which environmental information activities to undertake;

b. how the Australian Government funds environmental information activity;

c. the legal and policy arrangements governing the Australian Government’s acquisition, management and provision of environmental information;

d. the degree of coordination and collaboration between different environmental information activities across the Australian Government;

e. how Australian Government agencies cooperate to undertake interagency environmental information activities;

f. the degree to which environmental information is standardised across the Australian Government; and

g. how the Australian Government ensures the quality and credibility of its environmental information.

2. As a part of its assessment, the review will identify:

a. roles and responsibilities for environmental information activity across the Australian Government;

b. best practice environmental information activities across the Australian Government;

c. barriers to the effective and efficient collection and sharing of environmental information across the Australian Government; and

d. options to improve the provision and use of environmental information generated with government investment.

3. The review will focus on the environmental information activities of Australian Government agencies, including the way the Australian Government works with other levels of government and non-government organisations.

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4. The review will have regard to the best practice approaches of other Australian and international jurisdictions and the private sector.

5. The review will also have regard to planned work under the National Plan for Environmental Information initiative.

The review will provide a report to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities by December 2012. The report should set out recommendations to assist the Australian Government to improve the way it conducts its environmental information business.

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Appendix 2: List of shortened formsABS Australian Bureau of StatisticsAGIMO Australian Government Information Management Office, a part of DoFDAIHW Australian Institute of Health and WelfareAusGOAL Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing frameworkBoM Bureau of MeteorologyCSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research OrganisationDAFF Department of Agriculture, Forestry and FisheriesDCCEE Department of Climate Change and Energy EfficiencyDefence Department of DefenceDoFD Department of Finance and DeregulationDoHA Department of Health and AgeingDIISRTE Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary EducationDIT Department of Infrastructure and TransportDRALGAS Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and SportDRET Department of Resources, Energy and TourismDSEWPaC Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and CommunitiesEDRMS Electronic Document Records Management SystemEIAG Environmental Information Advisory GroupEPBC Act Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999ERIN Environmental Resources Information NetworkGPS global positioning systemICT Information and Communications TechnologyIGAE Intergovernmental Agreement on the EnvironmentMDBA Murray-Darling Basin AuthorityNCRIS National Collaborative Research Infrastructure StrategyNPEI National Plan for Environmental InformationOAIC Office of the Australian Information CommissionerPAGE Policy Advisory Group on Environment

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