4. Provision 3: Mandates, resources, and literacy
Ensure the successful operationalisation and take-up of open government strategies and initiatives by:
(i) Providing public officials with the mandate to design and implement successful open government strategies and initiatives, as well as the adequate human, financial, and technical resources, while promoting a supportive organisational culture;
(ii) Promoting open government literacy in the administration, at all levels of government, and among stakeholders.
Provision 3 of the Recommendation is about operationalising Adherents’ open government agendas, including by creating an adequate institutional framework and co-ordination mechanisms.
Most Adherents have de facto established an Open Government Office.
In line with OGP Guidelines, all OGP members must identify a public official responsible for co-ordinating their domestic and international OGP activities. The OGP refers to this person as the Government Point of Contact (POC). In practice, evidence collected through the OECD Open Government Reviews and Scans revealed that the POC – in Adherents that participate in the OGP – is today often part of an office that in addition to being in charge of the OGP process co-ordinates a range of additional open government initiatives that cut across the entire government (the “Open Government Office”).
Moreover, evidence indicates that Adherents that are not part of the OGP usually do not have a dedicated Open Government Office. Nevertheless, many of these countries have a government office which concentrates core responsibilities for the promotion of openness. For example, in Austria the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport’s Department for Strategic Performance Management and Public Sector Innovation is in charge of a number of open government policies, such as fostering citizen and stakeholder participation, and it sends the country’s Delegate to the OECD Working Party on Open Government.
Responsibilities of Adherent’s Open Government Offices have been growing steadily.
While most Open Government Offices were initially set up to co-ordinate the OGP Action Plan cycle, over time, many of them have started taking over a mandate for other substantive responsibilities relating to openness. In fact, responses to the 2020 OECD Survey on Open Government show that many of the offices that co-ordinate the OGP Action Plans today have mandates that go (much) beyond the OGP-process (e.g., responsibilities relating to access to information and/or citizen participation, etc.). While this is a positive trend, the results of the OECD Open Government Reviews and Scans show that many areas of open government remain beyond the reach of the Open Government Offices. Moving forward, Adherents could consider giving their Open Government Offices an even broader mandate which, in turn, would empower them to successfully design and implement more holistic Open Government Strategies.
As regards their responsibilities for the OGP Action Plan, all Open Government Offices co-ordinate the co-creation of the action plan and raise awareness about the OGP-process with external stakeholders (respectively 100%, 33 Respondents) (Figure 4.1). A similarly high share of Offices co-ordinates the implementation of the OGP Action Plan and raises awareness about the OGP-process within government (respectively 97%, 32 Respondents). To the contrary, only few offices allocate funding to (15.2%, five Respondents) or co-ordinate funding of the OGP Action Plan (12.1%, four Respondents).
Argentina
Besides the OGP-process, Argentina’s National Directorate for Open Government is responsible for the design, implementation and evaluation of the Open Government Strategic Plan (2020 - 2023), a long-term strategy on open data, transparency, innovation and citizen participation. In addition, the Directorate is in charge of the open data agenda, that is, the coordination of the National Public Data Portal (https://datos.gob.ar/), which centralises the data catalogues of the different centralised and decentralised bodies of the National Executive Branch. This entails the development of guidelines, training and inter-institutional communication for the opening of data and the development of data-based services.
Portugal
Portugal’s open government office in the Administrative Modernization Agency (AMA) is – in addition to the OGP-process – in charge of the country’s official public open data portal dados.gov.pt and administers Simplex, a consultation portal on administrative simplification. Further, AMA has a particular unit, called LabX, the Experimentation Lab for Public Administration that embeds participation and co-creation processes in all their projects, often engaging citizens and civil society organisations.
Slovak Republic
The Slovak Republic’s Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Slovak Government for the Development of Civil Society is also responsible for EU-funded initiatives that strengthen participation at both national and subnational levels of the government. This includes, among others, the development of guidelines, tools and the evaluation of participatory processes. Additionally, it is in charge of a project promoting partnership and open communication between civil society and the public sector within the EU fund ecosystem, and it cooperates with other ministries and central state institutions, local and regional governments on topics related to the open government, such as fight against corruption.
Source: OECD (2020[1]), 2020 Survey on Open Government.
Open Government Offices are most commonly situated in the Centre of Government.
Data collected through the 2020 OECD Survey on Open Government shows that Open Government Offices are most commonly located in Respondents’ Centre of Government1. In fact, across Respondents that are part of the OGP, 33.3% of the offices (11 out of 33) co-ordinating the OGP-processes are situated in the President’s or Prime Minister’s Office. In addition, 21.2% of the Offices are situated in other line ministries, 24.2% are institutionally located in the Ministry of Public Administration/Modernization/Planning and 9.1% in the Ministry of Interior. In few cases, the Open Government Office is situated in the Ministry of Finance (6.1%) or the Ministry of Justice (3%) (Figure 4.2).
In some Adherents, the open government file had initially often been pushed into technology-oriented offices or into the anti-corruption field, by institutionally locating the responsibility for it in the office co-ordinating the government’s digital government, open data or integrity agenda. Today, the Open Government offices’ parent institutions (i.e., the Ministry in which they are located) commonly have a broad range of responsibilities relating to open government. Public sector reform/modernisation is most frequently part of that institution’s portfolio (81.2%, 26 out of 32 offices), followed by open government data (71.9%), public sector innovation, citizen participation (both 68.8%) and digital government (65.6%) (Figure 4.3).
The centre of government (CoG) can facilitate the link between open government strategies and initiatives and broader national objectives, including development objectives such as achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The CoG can connect open government initiatives across government (including different sectors, levels of government and non-state actors) in order to foster a shared vision.
The CoG can also promote good practices in the area of open government – as well as institutional champions – across government and among citizens.
The CoG can strengthen the strategic use of performance data across the public sector, in order to support monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of open government strategies and initiatives (OECD, 2015b).
Source: Adapted from (OECD, 2016[2]).
Finally, Open Government Offices are usually headed by a senior public servant. The most common level of the most senior employee in the office co-ordinating the OGP-process is the one of D1-manager (34.4%, 11 out of 32 offices), followed by D2-managers (28.1%) (Figure 4.4).
Human, financial and technical resources dedicated to open government have grown.
An open government agenda requires dedicated human, financial and technical resources to be successfully implemented. While time-sensitive data is not yet available, evidence collected through the OECD Open Government Reviews and Scans indicates that human and technical resources in particular have been growing steadily over the past years.
Staff numbers dedicated to open government are on the rise in Adherents.
Given the wide range of policies and practices that contribute to openness and taking into consideration that pieces of the open government agenda usually sit in different institutions across government, the exact number of staff working on open government issues in Adherents is, of course, hard to measure. As a matter of example, in the 2020 Survey, more than 42.9% (15 out of 35) of Respondents indicated that they themselves did not even know the percentage of government ministries that had staff dedicated to citizen and stakeholder participation at national level (OECD, 2020[1]).
On average, Adherents that are part of the OGP have 2.56 full time equivalent (FTE) employees dedicated to co-ordinating their countries’ OGP-process (SOG). The findings of the OECD Open Government Reviews confirmed that the number of staff dedicated to the OGP-process has generally been on the rise in recent years in most Adherents. Moreover, the number of FTE working on the OGP-process does, of course, not include other staff working in the Open Government Office (i.e., public officials working on open government files but who are not formally involved in the OGP-process). For example, the OECD Open Government Review of Argentina showed that, in addition to the two staff members in charge of OGP-matters, the country had approximately 50 staff dedicated to open government issues in the then Undersecretariat for Open Government and Public Innovation. Along similar lines, Brazil’s Open Government unit, the Secretariat for Transparency and Corruption Prevention has more than 30 staff working on open government issues, four of whom are dedicated to the OGP-process.
Financial resources dedicated to Adherents’ open government agenda.
Developing and implementing an open government agenda may involve reforming laws and institutions, developing new skills, new technologies and platforms, etc., all of which requires dedicated financial resources. Adequate funding is therefore vital for efficient and sustainable implementation of open government reforms. For the time being, only five Adherents have a dedicated budget line for open government in their national budget. In most cases, open government reforms are funded on an ad hoc basis. Notably, this is also the case for Adherents’ OGP Action Plans. In fact, few Adherents that are part of the OGP have structured funding for the implementation of their action plans. Most of the times, open government initiatives included in it (“commitments”) are funded separately by each implementing institution.
As data from the Survey on Open Government shows, the financing of open government policy documents is most commonly based on funds from the government (110 policy documents, 88.7%). 21 % of policy documents (26) are (co-) financed through the European Union. Only rarely other sources of funding exist, such as multilateral organisations (seven, 5.6%) or bilateral development cooperation agencies (three, 2.4%) (Figure 4.5).
Open government and participation portals are becoming mainstreamed.
Participation portals, such as websites where public institutions publish consultation and engagement opportunities, can help to facilitate collaboration with citizens and stakeholders. A participation portal can list all participation opportunities across the central/federal government or only those offered by a specific institution (OECD, 2021[3]). Government-wide portals have the advantage of providing a “one-stop shop” for citizens to learn about past, current and future opportunities for participation. On the other hand, institution or policy-specific portals are easier to adapt to the specifics of a given participation process (OECD, 2021[3]).
Some governments rely solely on one type of portal, while others use a mixed approach combining two or more of them. 31 out of 35 Respondents (88.6%) have government-wide participation portals used by all ministries at the central/federal level of government. 17 Respondents (48.6%) have several government-wide portals, and 14 (40%) have a single government-wide portal. Further, nine Respondents (25.7%) report using at least one institution-specific portal, most often in addition to their government-wide portals. Other types of portals, most commonly being dedicated solely to specific policy documents such as the OGP Action Plan, exist in eight Respondents (22.9%).
The portals are most frequently used to inform about past participation opportunities (70.7%) and to carry out online consultations or engagement (69.5%). It is less common for participation portals to provide information about citizens’ rights to participate (32, 39%), to provide feedback to users on how the government implemented their inputs (27, 32.9%) and to redirect to institutional participation portals (18, 22%).
Open government literacy – understood as the combination of awareness, knowledge and skills that public officials and stakeholders need to engage successfully in open government strategies and initiatives – is key to transforming a country’s culture of governance.
Adherents offer a wide range of trainings and courses on open government and its principles.
The provision of trainings, courses and capacity-building events can be a way of ensuring that both public officials and non-public stakeholders embody open government principles. Trainings on open government and its principles are now widely available in Adherents (OECD, 2020[1]). In particular, 78.9% (30 Respondents) offer trainings on access to information, followed by trainings on open government data (73.7%, 28 Respondents) and on citizen and stakeholder participation (63.2%, 24 Respondents). While the number has been growing, for the time being, only 34.2% (13) of Respondents have dedicated trainings on open government (see Box 4.3 for an example from Spain).
Enabling non-public stakeholders to strengthen their open government literacy can render open government reforms more effective. However, 43.2% (16) of Respondents indicate that they offer no trainings related to open government. Among those who do, available courses most frequently cover access to information and open government data (11 Respondents, 29.7%).
As part of a commitment during their third OGP Action Plan 2017-2019, Spain implemented an Open Government Education plan. The idea was to train educators so that they could teach open government principles and practical case studies to their pupils. To achieve this, the National Institute of Educational Technologies and Teacher Training (INTEF) in coordination with other agencies and ministries put together a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to train teachers, as well as other didactical materials in order for them to teach at their primary and secondary schools.
The course and materials were also used to further acquaint officials and other stakeholders with the open government pillars and values. The Spanish government also conducted an evaluation of the project in order to improve during further iterations.
Source: OPSI (2018[4]) Education in Open Government.
Competency frameworks for public officials commonly include competencies relating to open government policies and practices.
The vast majority of Adherents includes specific competencies relating to open government in public officials’ competency frameworks or profiles. In fact, 30 out of 35 Respondents (85.7%%) allude to central themes of open government in these frameworks (Figure 4.9). Public values/integrity is most commonly present (82.9%), followed by communication (71.4%) and engagement skills (68.6%). These frameworks are most frequently used in job profiles/descriptions (71.4%, 20 respondents), in recruitment processes and for performance assessments (respectively 67.9%, 19 Respondents) (OECD, 2020[1]).
In terms of the operationalisation of their government agendas (provision 3), Adherents have made important progress:
3.1: Most Adherents have established a dedicated Open Government Office which is most commonly situated in the Centre of Government. The responsibilities of Adherents’ Open Government Offices have been growing over the implementation period and now frequently include tasks relating to the co-ordination and/or implementation of different open government policies and practices, such as access to information, open government data and/or citizen and stakeholder participation.
3.2: Generally, human, financial and technical resources dedicated to open government are growing across Adherents. In particular, Adherents’ teams dedicated to open government issues are getting bigger and they have an increasing number of technical resources, such as online portals, at their disposal. In order to be able to adequately fulfil their increasing levels of responsibilities (including implementing eventual upcoming Open Government Strategies), Adherents could consider further empowering their Open Government Offices over the next implementation period. This may include providing them with additional specialised human resources and reviewing the financing available for the implementation of the main policy documents on open government.
3.3: Finally, all Adherents are making dedicated efforts to foster public and non-public stakeholders’ open government literacy, including by providing trainings and courses and by including competencies relating to open government policies and practices in public officials’ competency frameworks. These efforts should be widened and deepened. In particular, Adherents could consider making additional efforts to foster the open government literacy of non-public stakeholders.
References
[3] OECD (2021), Government at a Glance 2021, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1c258f55-en.
[1] OECD (2020), OECD Survey on Open Government.
[2] OECD (2016), Open Government: The Global Context and the Way Forward, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264268104-en.
[4] OPSI (2018), Education in Open Government, https://oecd-opsi.org/innovations/education-in-open-government/.
Note
← 1. In OECD terminology, the Centre of Government (CoG) refers to the group of institutions or units that serve the head of government (President or Prime Minister) and the Council of Ministers (OECD, 2014).