The Parliamentary Counsel Office has released information on its plans to improve acess to subordinate instruments by publishing them all on the New Zealand Legislation website.

Subordinate instruments (or regulations) are made under delegated law-making authority from Parliament. While many are drafted by the PCO, thousands of others are drafted and published by at least 106 agencies.

PCO-drafted subordinate instruments are published on the New Zealand Legislation website but the others from the 106 other agencies are not.

"These agency instruments are published either in the Gazette or on a variety of different websites or in newspapers or are not readily available to the public. This makes it difficult to find and access all legislation," the PCO says.

The Access to Subordinate Instruments Project (ASIP) has the objective of providing for subordinate instruments drafted by agencies to be published in full on the New Zealand Legislation website.

Established in September 2015, the ASIP team has now reached the stage where it will start communicating with the agencies involved.

The ASIP team is preparing a series of presentations for agencies who draft subordinate instruments. These presentations will occur in late July and early August 2016 and will cover information about ASIP and the changes each agency may need to prepare for. 

Agencies will also be asked to provide information about the subordinate instruments they are responsible for, and their systems for drafting and publishing them, to help inform the project design.