OGN Submission: UK 2011-13 Action Plan Self Assessment
The UK OGP civil society network today submitted the following to the Government’s consultation on its self assessment against the UK’s 2011 open government action plan:
To whom it concerns,
Over the past few months civil society organisations that form part of the UK OGP Civil Society Network have been working with Cabinet Office colleagues in an open policy-making process to develop the commitments for the UK’s Second National Action Plan, to be published in time for the OGP Annual Conference at the end of October 2013. We have appreciated the commitment of colleagues, in particular Sophia Oliver, Ilaria Miller and lately Pete Lawrence.
During this process there has been widespread recognition by both civil society and government that the first action plan focused too much on open data and that going forward the vision of open government should be broadened to include not only open data, but a wider focus on transparency, participation and accountability. That is why the current version of the second action plan is divided into the three areas of open data and transparency, participation and accountability. There is also a fourth area around global partnerships, that seeks to develop commitments for how the UK government can work with others to build on best practice and support the highest standards of transparency, participation and accountability worldwide.
As one of the aims of the consultation on the first action plan is to “identify commitments that it will be important to keep in the next action plan”, we enclose the attached document (sent to the Cabinet Office team on March 20th as part of the ongoing consultative process), that includes many commitments that we think should be included, and that we are confident will also be in the draft action plan due to be published before the Steering Committee meeting on 22-24 April.
Yours sincerely,
Simon Burall
Coordinator, UK OGP Civil Society Network