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• New Zealand Government Web Standards 1.0

Examples can be found under most of this standard's subsections.

Required pages or sections and their content

Index 

• Overview
• Homepage
• About this site
• Contact information
• Legal and policy information
• Publicly available reports
• Media releases and other public information
• Site owner is clearly identified

Standard

Overview

Agency websites must contain the following pages or sections, and the respective minimum content as specified.

Notes

1. Page or section names may vary from those below, but must convey the same meaning.
2. Only corporate (or "main" sites) are required to supply the content under "Publicly available reports" and "Media releases and other public information".

Homepage

Homepage content must include the following information, or link directly to it.

• Contact information. See Contact information below for content details.
• About this site. See About this site below for content details.

The homepage must also contain the following.

• A link to the website newzealand.govt.nz
• The name and/or logo of the agency primarily responsible for the website.

Example

See the homepage from this website.

About this site

Agency sites must provide a page or section called "About this site", or similar, which acts a convenient container of (or an index to) all site information.

The content of this section or page must contain as a minimum:

• Site owner. Cleary specify the site owner. Where the site is not the main agency site, link back to the main agency site.
• Copyright. Provide copyright information here, or provide a link to copyright information. See the Copyright standard.
• Copyright of third parties. Provide copyright of third parties information here if relevant, or provide a link to copyright of third parties information. See the Copyright of third parties standard.
• Privacy. Provide privacy information here, or provide a link to privacy information. See the Privacy statement standard.
• Contact details. Provide contact information here, or provide a link to contact information. See the Contact information standard below.
• Disclaimer. If a disclaimer is required, provide information here, or provide a link to disclaimer information. See the Disclaiming content standard.   
• Terms of use. Provide terms of use (terms and conditions) information here if required, or provide a link to terms of use information. See the Terms of use standard.

Example

See the About this site page from this website.

Contact information

Agencies must provide clear contact information.

Email addresses

Agency websites must create the email addresses listed below. It is at the discretion of the agency whether these email addresses are published on the site.

• info@<domain>
• postmaster@<domain>
• webmaster@<domain>
• privacy@<domain>
• complaints by at least one of:
  • complaints@<domain>
  • abuse@<domain>
• general enquiries by at least one of:
  • enquiries@<domain>, or
  • enquiry@<domain>

The agency must ensure email is monitored and, if requests for information are received, responded to in a timely way.

Physical location and telephone contact details

Agency websites must provide the following contact details for all offices, except where there are strong security or business reasons not to do so:

• Telephone numbers
• Street locations

Additional contact information

Additional contact information may include:

• TTY numbers for people who are deaf or have a hearing, speech or communication impairment. These should be included with primary contact information or the relevant program contact information.
• Referrals to other programmes or agencies for common misdirected enquiries.

Example

See the Contact page from this website.

Legal and policy information

Agency websites must provide information on privacy, copyright, etc as required by the Legal and Policy standards. Note that this information may be provided on the "About this site" page, or on individual pages.

Example

See the About this site page from this website.

Publicly available reports

Agency websites must provide any publicly available reports that the agency is statutorily required to produce. This includes, but is not limited to, annual reports, statements of intent, service charters and budget statements.

Note: only corporate (or "main" sites) are required to supply publicly available reports. 

Media releases and other public information

Agency websites must provide all agency media releases, and other public information such as public notices, warnings and advice. These must be published online as soon as they are formally released.

Note: only corporate (or "main" sites) are required to supply media releases and other public information.

Site owner is clearly identified

It must be clear which agency is administering a website. For example:

Studylink and Office for Disability Issues (ODI) are websites administered by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). The Studylink and ODI sites link back to the main MSD website. Administered, hosted, or co-owned sites must clearly link to the main agency site (or the main sites of all co-owners).

An agency's main site must clearly contain links to other sites it owns, administers, or hosts, including any co-owned sites. These links must also include short-term sites used for promotional and marketing activities and agency sites that are not on the .govt.nz domain.

Administered, hosted, or co-owned sites must clearly link to the main agency site (or the main sites of all co-owners).

Example

See the About this site page from this website.