26th September 2015
The UK Government has formally launched the consultation for the UK’s 2016-2018 OGP National Action Plan. The Open Government Partnership (OGP) was established in 2011. It provides an international platform for reformers committed to making their governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. Each country in the OGP must develop a biennial national action plan to advance transparency,…
25th September 2015
The UK’s 2013-15 OGP Progress Report was published on Wednesday. Here Ben Worthy, the UK’s Independent Reporting Mechanism researcher, reflects on progress since the publication of the UK’s second National Action Plan. The UK government is now nearing the end of its Second National Action Plan created as part of the Open Government Partnership process.…
24th September 2015
The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) has released the UK’s second progress report covering the formation and first year of implementation of the second UK action plan. Ben Worthy, an academic based at Birkbeck College, University of London carried out the research: “The UK government wrote an ambitious action plan that involved civil society organisations closely in the process. The…
22nd September 2015
140 media bodies, campaign groups and others [1], including members of the Open Government Network, have written to the Prime Minister expressing ‘serious concern’ at the government’s approach to the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. The organisations are particularly concerned at the Commission on Freedom of Information, announced on July 17th this year. They say its terms…
8th September 2015
One of the central elements of the Open Government Partnership is the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM), which provides an annual independent assessment of each country’s progress on the OGP. In this post, the UK’s IRM Researcher, Ben Worthy, summarises some of the key findings from the UK’s new IRM report. How Did it Work? Across the CSOs I spoke…
2nd September 2015
The findings of research commissioned by Hivos and undertaken by three academics – Mary Francoli, Alina Ostling, and Fabro Steibel – on improving government-civil society interactions within OGP has just been published. Civic engagement is at the heart of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). In signing the Open Government Declaration, OGP members commit to engaging…
14th August 2015
Members of the UK Open Government Network have written to Matthew Hancock, Minister for the Cabinet Office, to express concern at recent developments that threaten the Freedom of Information Act, including the terms of reference of the Government’s Freedom of Information Commission. The Open Government Network calls on the Government to ‘publish its reasons for limiting the…
13th August 2015
How subnational governments and civil society can be involved in the Open Government Partnership is an important question that we’re grappling with in the UK. It’s a particularly pressing issue in a country such as the UK, where significant powers are devolved to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and increasingly to cities and regions. Nathaniel…
10th August 2015
Colm Burns and Paul Braithwaite from the Northern Ireland Open Government Network have written for the OGP blog on the importance of devolved governments and civil society being involved in OGP action plans: The Open Government Partnership has spread rapidly since its inception in 2011 and now boasts 65 member countries with more likely to…
3rd August 2015
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…