5th November 2013
At last week’s Open Government Partnership (OGP) Summit, the UK published its second OGP National Action Plan. This marked the culmination of a year’s worth of hard work by government officials and civil society network members to develop, scrutinise and reach compromise on the commitments to be included in the plan. The final result can be…
31st October 2013
In a couple of hours David Cameron will be up on stage at the Open Government Partnership international Summit launching the UK’s National Action Plan for Open Government [http://data.gov.uk/sites/default/files/library/20131031_ogp_uknationalactionplan.pdf]. The development of this plan has taken nine months of intense work for both Government and organisations in the UK civil society network. Our role has…
8th October 2013
Today (8 October 2013), civil society organisations from the UK OGP civil society network sent the following open letter to the Prime Minister calling on him to announce a series of ambitious commitments towards greater openness: Rt Hon David Cameron MP 10 Downing Street London SW1A 2AA Cc: The Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP…
27th September 2013
This article was originally posted on the Open Government Partnership blog: http://blog.opengovpartnership.org/2013/09/analysis-of-the-uk-irm-report-2/ [line] The UK is now deep into the detail of developing the commitments which will form its second National Action Plan. This will be published at the Annual Summit at the end of October. The release of the IRM report on the first Plan is…
9th August 2013
The Open Government Partnership summit in London is gaining momentum, as evidenced by the growing engagement from civil society organisations. The OGP is reaching an important milestone, with the closure of its first cycle of country commitments and independent assessments. The summit will be an inclusive space where governments can announce inspiring projects and collaborate…
31st July 2013
The UK Government has just launched a BETA version of a new tool for interrogating government spending called GIST – Government Interrogating Spending Tool: http://www.gist.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ A press release by the Cabinet Office states that: A powerful new online tool which presents taxpayers with an unprecedented view of how their money is spent was launched today by Cabinet Office Minister…
31st July 2013
The Open Government Partnership has just launched a pre-registration page for the OGP Summit being held in London on 31 October and 1 November 2013. For more information and to register, follow this link: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/news/do-not-miss-2013-ogp-summit-pre-register-now
19th July 2013
When David Cameron said in 2010 that lobbying was ‘the next scandal waiting to happen’ he was both right and wrong. Right because it is an area which is ripe for scandal – a potentially unsavoury mix of money, power, politics and special interests. Wrong because by the time he said it, the scandal was…
18th July 2013
Sciencewise-ERC – the UK’s national centre for public dialogue in policy making involving science and technology issues – has published a review of public views on the topic of open data over the past five years, available here: http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/public-views-on-open-data/ Here’s the executive summary: The report provides an analysis of key messages and trends; and gives an overview of possible…
17th July 2013
Today (17 July 2013) the Coalition Government published the “Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill“, which sets out its plans for a “lobbying register”. On the face-of-it, this should be a positive step on a critical aspect of open government: making it transparent who influences government’s decisions. But the devil – as…