A "service and purchase" agreement for 2012-15 signed by ACC Minister Judith Collins and ACC last week emphasises the need to "improve trust and confidence" in ACC.
The agreement also requires ACC to respond to "100% of information requests", under the Official Information Act and Privacy Act, within the statutory requirements - for the OIA, within 20 working days, unless a time extension has been sought.
On March 16, the Otago Daily Times had requested, under the OIA, the number of Otago ACC claimants whose names appeared on a list of 6725 people mistakenly emailed to an Auckland claimant, Bronwyn Pullar, late last year, in a major privacy breach.
Several ongoing high-level inquiries, including by the Privacy Commissioner, have been sparked by the email mistake.
In a letter to the ODT last week, ACC government services adviser Jon-Paul Bignold advised that 479 Otago claimants had been on the email list.
Dr Denise Powell, the president of Acclaim Otago, a support organisation for ACC claimants, said the service agreement signed last week had clearly highlighted the need to comply "100%" with the OIA law, and this was a positive step.
New Zealand official information laws were designed to promote open government but Acclaim Otago had itself experienced some long and frustrating delays in gaining official information from ACC, sometimes having to make repeated requests for the same material.
Dr Powell hoped the service agreement meant more "timely responses" would be provided, but internal processes at ACC might have to change for that to happen, she said.
Approached for comment about the service agreement requirements, ACC lead media adviser Stephanie Melville said ACC had recently been striving to respond to a "huge increase in the number of requests" under the OIA and had always been committed to complying with the legislation.
"Obviously, there is an expectation that what we do gets better," Ms Melville said.
Resourcing could take "a little while to manage", but ACC would be "working to make sure" resources were in place to avoid repetition of the excessive delay problem the ODT had experienced, she said.
