Despite the NZCS having plenty of other work on its plate, it is crucial that it take a lead role in formulating the code, Matthews says. Living up to its status as a professional society demands it. "You only have to look as far as the work of the NZ Institute of Chartered Accountants, Institute of Professional Engineers, Law Society, etc," he says on the NZCS blog. "These are bodies of professionals who work on the standards and practices in these fields, engaging with all stakeholders in the process."

Detail of the code's implementation is outside the scope of the current project, as are the potentially controversial questions of initially assessing organisations' practices against the code and deciding subsequently when an organisation has fallen into non-compliance and how that should be penalised.

The NZCS set up a budget for the exercise and this has already been oversubscribed by companies and industry organisations, such as NZRise, InternetNZ, Gen-i, Onenet, Equinox, Xero and the NZCS itself. This is a gratifying measure of the degree of industry commitment, Matthews says. The oversubscription may be handled by reducing the originally set subscription amount for everyone or by keeping the extra funds in reserve.