The Crown Law Office

The Crown Law Office

Context

The Crown Law Office (CLO) provides legal advice and representation services to the government in matters affecting the Executive Government, particularly in the areas of criminal, public and administrative law. CLO does not develop policy, and the services it provides are specifically for government. External contacts are almost exclusively with Crown Law's clients who are other government agencies, and with crown solicitors.

Crown Law Office E-government Initiatives

• New website completed
• The Crown Law Office

Summary

Ready Access: CLO provides ready access to general information about its services for government on its website and through the government portal. The website has been designed to comply with e-government standards. It provides general information about CLO, its purpose, contact details and recruitment information.

Alignment: CLO's alignment with the E-government Strategy reflects its role and the fact that external contacts are mainly with client government agencies and crown solicitors.

Internet and Communications Technology

CLO's website was upgraded and modernised in March 2004. The website is informational, providing details about CLO, its purpose and relationship to government, contact information, and links to other agencies and businesses. Compliance with the Government Web Guidelines was integral to the website redesign.

The Links section in the new website is comprehensive. With increased website exposure, CLO has received a growing number of questions from the public - often received from overseas - that other agencies need to answer. Consequently, CLO provides comprehensive links, with short summary details, so that people can email or telephone a more appropriate agency with their query.

A priority for CLO is improving management of and access to information for staff. To date this has involved the creation of stable and reliable technologies for the production and ongoing management of documents. An iManage system with a web front end is used for document management and intranet content management.

CLO is also considering a secure website to enable government agencies and crown solicitors to have improved access to specific CLO information. The website could include monitoring of individual case progress, and provide access to all advice given that has been electronically recorded or digitised, dating back to 1875.

Some internal processes could potentially be Internet enabled, such as crown solicitor funding, which is currently a paper-based process.

Ready Access to Information and Services

Metadata

CLO has four metadata records. This is an appropriate number of records given that the agency's role does not include the provision of information and services to the general public.

CLO's metadata records are generally well written in plain English for a general audience, e.g. 'learn about how the Crown conducts legal business'. Unfortunately, two broken links at the time of review needed to be fixed to improve access through the government portal.

Website Assessment

Websites assessed during May 2004 included: www.crownlaw.govt.nz

Overall, CLO's website is of an average standard. Strengths of the website are in required government content and accessibility. In future, improvements could be made in the areas of information delivery and usability.

Key issues noted during the assessment included:

• Modest range and depth of content with some required content absent, e.g. 'what's new'.
• More links to related content within the website would be useful.
• Language is somewhat bureaucratic and may be difficult for some people to understand.
• Some broken links prevent people from accessing certain content.
• Required email addresses are missing or were not answered during the assessment.
• Missing accessibility features such as navigation skipping, access keys and style sheet problems may impede some physically impaired people's access.
• Many documents are in PDF only, excluding people who are unable or unwilling to read this format.
• Some of the HTML does not comply with the Web Guidelines but it performed well on all browsers.

Alignment With E-government Goals

Convenience and Satisfaction

The single CLO website provides adequate details and information for the public. External parties that may benefit from better access to information are crown solicitors, law societies and selected people from government agencies. CLO is currently considering a secure website, which will address the specific needs of these groups.

Integration and Efficiency

CLO's role and objectives present few opportunities to provide integrated information or services externally.

CLO has numerous and detailed web links to encourage people to contact the appropriate agencies for the information or services they need, or to participate in government.

Participation

CLO's main contribution to participation is to ensure that its role and function are understood. CLO has achieved this with its website.