News 6th December 2012

UK share revised co-chair vision

by TimDavies

Back in September when the UK became lead co-chair of the Open Government Partnership they released a draft ‘co-chair vision‘.

We started by gathering comments on the strategy through an online document, and through the recent Open Policy Making process with the OGP team from Cabinet Office, have input into a revised co-chair vision published for this week’s OGP Steering Committee meeting in London.

Compare the draft and the new version and you will see the impact of civil society input, leading to a vision that emphasises:

• That transparency and participation drive economic growth, well-being and prosperity through efficient use of resources, citizen engagement and inclusive development
  
• Applying the principles of openness and transparency to ensure accountability across the public, private and voluntary sectors
• Supporting an open discussion of barriers to achieving the benefits of open government, and the actions that government and civil society can take to overcome these.
• Establishing, with the support of our civil society partners, the OGP networking mechanisms into the foremost knowledge exchange on open government.
• Stimulating the development of relevant links and new international and domestic partnerships, on cross-cutting themes, such as data standards, smart cities, data portals and community budget pilots.
• Promoting engagement by a more diverse group of civil society organisations at both international and national levels in order to both expand ownership by citizens and promote greater accountability, and working with civil society to achieve this.
• Working in partnership with the UK civil society, and global civil society partners, to organise the 2013 OGP plenary meeting in London.