e-GIF Management Committee Summary 18 October 2007

1. Web Guidelines – Exemption Requests

The Committee:

• agreed that they would grant a time bound exemption to the Parliamentary Counsel Office for Public Access to Legislation (PAL) website until 31 December 2010 with regard to table summaries due to a perceived conflict between the requirements of the Web Standards and the Interpretation Act 1999. Before this exemption may become permanent, the Parliamentary Counsel Office is to review and report back to the State Services Commission providing a legal position/analysis.
• agreed that they would grant a time bound exemption until 31 December 2010 to enable the Parliamentary Counsel Office to complete adding alternative text for approximately 10,000 legacy images.

The Committee:

• agreed to issue a temporary time bound exemption for the Staff CV, Office for Disability Issues, Office for Senior Citizens, Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Work and Income and Studylink websites until 30 June 2008 so that the Ministry of Social Development can achieve full compliance subject to the following caveats:

  a) A report back to the State Services Commission in July 2008 advising the state of compliance for the above websites and confirm deliverables met.

  b) All new websites will be compliant unless there is a valid reason not to comply and an exemption is in place.

2. Request to Approve the Definitions Regarding Enterprise Architecture (Clifton Chan, SSC)

The Committee:

• agreed the definition of 'enterprise architecture' as being:

  "Enterprise architecture is the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and improving the key principles and models that describe the enterprise's future state and enable its evolution."

  "The scope of the enterprise architecture includes the people, processes, information and technology of the enterprise, and their relationships to one another and to the external environment. Enterprise architects compose holistic solutions that address the business challenges of the enterprise and support the governance needed to implement them."

• agreed the definition of 'framework' as being:

  "An architecture framework is a tool which can be used for developing a broad range of different architectures. It describes a method for designing an information system in terms of a set of building blocks, and for showing how the building blocks fit together. It contains a set of tools and provides a common vocabulary. It also includes a list of recommended standards and compliant products that can be used to implement the building blocks."

• agreed the definition of 'federated' as being:

  "… a way that balances the interests of the whole (of government) with the autonomy of agencies."

• agreed the scope of the Federated Enterprise Architecture as being:

  "… applies when agencies share information, technology and business processes."

  Specifically this includes the Public Service and non-State Sector Act departments.

• noted the development methodology as being the Architecture Development Method (ADM) from The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), which documents various activities in the form of a process cycle.

3. Meeting Schedule

The Committee:

agreed the Meeting Schedule for 2008 as follows:

• Thursday 21 February 2008
• Thursday 17 April 2008
• Thursday 19 June 2008
• Thursday 21 August 2008
• Thursday 23 October 2008
• Thursday 18 December 2008

NEXT MEETING:

Updated Schedule

• 6 December, 3:00 – 6:00pm, Land Information New Zealand