Points of View 16th March 2015

Faces of the UK Open Government Network – Rachel Davies, Transparency International UK

by Josephine Suherman-Bailey

Josephine was a Policy Analyst at Involve. She worked on the Open Government Partnership and supported the coordination of the UK Open Government Partnership civil society network.

Open government can be an abstract idea. We want to give people a better idea of what it is, and who is in the UK Open Government Civil Society Network. We’ve asked some existing members of the network to give us their thoughts on what open government means to them, why it’s important, where they have seen open government make a difference to the lives of citizens, and the reforms they would ask of government.

We’ll be publishing a series of profiles of members of the network every few weeks, so keep a lookout! Our third blog is Rachel Davies from Transparency International UK.

Rachel Davies, Transparency International UK

Public trust in the political system is low. The Government and political parties have some work to do to convince the electorate that they are serious about opening up government and cleaning up the corruption risks in UK politics.

Despite the damage that lobbying scandals cause to public trust in public institutions, many lobbying distortions and abuses occur within the rules. I find that baffling. I would love to see the Government take concrete action to tackle this – not just tinker around the edges – and ensure that transparency and integrity standards are raised.