Re: Consultation on Open Government Partnership Medium-term Self Assessment Report

[Flora Fleischer]

Hi Kieran,

are there links available to the results of the actions that have been completed and substantial progress made on, please? e.g. links to summaries, reports, pilot results, etc? Ideally will need this information for all of the action to be able to feedback on whether completed to a standard expected as per civil society draft NAP. 

For a lot of the actions I don't actually know what the current status is (even though on mailing lists) because there have not been consistent status updates on these actions.

Thanks,

Flora

On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 5:59 PM, Kieran Sheedy <Kieran...@per.gov.ie> wrote:

Membership of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) requires governments to submit Self-Assessment Reports assessing the government's performance in living up to its commitments in its OGP National Action Plan 2014-2016 (NAP).  The first (Midterm) report has now been drafted and a 3-week consultation process is being initiated on the report.  

 

Anyone wishing to submit their views on the Report may do so by forwarding them to me at Kieran...@per.gov.ie  by close of business on Monday 12^th October 2015.  All submissions will be considered, may be published on the Department’s website and will be subject to Freedom of Information legislation.    

 

Kieran Sheedy

Government Reform Unit

Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

7-9 Merrion Row

Dublin 2. 

D02 V223

 

P: +353-1-6045729

 

[Denis Parfenov]

Hi Flora and all -

@Flora - many thanks for constructive input.

I'd like to remind that the Open Knowledge Ireland had insisted on making the 1st NAP easy to comprehend and to follow during the implementation period. In June 2014 we have created a prototype of machine-readable and searchable NAP, which would allow effortless reporting on the progress.



​

http://openknowledge.ie/ogp-jam-round-up/

Unfortunately, this voluntarily effort was ignored by DPER.

Best,

Denis

--

Denis Parfenov

Open Knowledge Ambassador / Open Knowledge Ireland, Founder

https://openknowledge.ie/  | @OKFirl | Google+

'To open up all essential public interest information and see it used to create insight that drives change.'

[Flora Fleischer]

Hi Kieran,

the appendix is an 83 page document.

If I apply 30 mins of review for each of the action items (including reading, understanding, comparing to different wording in the civil society requested action items from back in 2014 and summarizing/collating/asking any questions I have) reviewing the document would take me about 5 hrs per week to complete. 7 hrs if I apply 40 mins to comprehend each action item.

I presume many people will be put off by this and it is an easy way to avoid getting feedback from people or being held accountable. I am not sure whether this can be completed for this round of public consultation but these action items & status updates need to be streamlined a lot for a normal interested citizen to be able to adequately respond.

What I'm interested in is what  each of the actions mean for me as a citizen, how it compares to what I had requested and what I am able to do now that I wasn't able to do before.

A process should be implemented right away to create such streamlined documents for citizens so we can efficiently understand where we are headed and what my feedback/input should be.

Until then my feedback will be that the plan and actions completed are difficult to comprehend, time consuming and as such in accessible.

Kind Regards,

Flora

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 9:31 AM, Kieran Sheedy <Kieran...@per.gov.ie> wrote:

Flora

 

I’m not fully sure what you mean by “summaries, reports, pilot results” etc. but the Appendix document to the Self Assessment report (copied) sets out in detail work undertaken etc. in respect of each of the actions. Each template also includes the contact details of the public sector individuals seeking to advance them so if you wished to get further detail you may wish to contact the person directly?

 

 

Kieran Sheedy

Government Reform Unit

Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

7-9 Merrion Row

Dublin 2. 

D02 V223

 

P: +353-1-6045729

E:  Kieran...@per.gov.ie

[Kieran Sheedy]

Flora

 

The format and detail of the Self-Assessment Report (SAR) and the templates follows the guidance note of OGP International – see attached pdf.  While SAR reports by other countries on the opengov partnership website don’t include Templates, we have been advised by OGP International  that  they must be completed from now on.  I have attached  for your information the ogp international procedures manual. You will see that the independent reviewer’s assessments of our actions are coded and input to a central system and in that context providing less detail than we have done would make the work of the reviewer more difficult. In view of the above, your suggestion that the SAR has been produced as we have done to “avoid getting feedback from people or being held accountable” is not correct.

 

The templates in appendix 1 were completed by those responsible for the individual actions and seek to address in as comprehensive a way as possible where things are at in relation to each one. While those responsible for individual actions hadn’t added weblinks to the templates to assist in finding documentation and reports etc. in all cases, on reflection I think would be helpful and we will do it centrally here over the next day or so. When done, I will replace the existing version of Appendix 1 on the websites with the revised version and let you know.  

[daydrea...@gmail.com]

Hi Kieran, 

Appreciate your explanation and background info and it's admirable DPER are looking to stay in line with OGP requirements. 

I think the issue I am trying to get at is that citizens have different requirements with regards to how the information is presented. It will be helpful if the project owners, public service, government officials and OGP leadership understand where we are at but there is a serious requirement here where the society at large, the governed, need to be able to understand and hold the government accountable. 

If we can achieve this with adequately tailored communication then I think we can win this. 

Regards,

Flora

Sent from my iPhone

<IRM Procedures Manual v 2.0 PUBLIC_0.docx>

<OGP_self_assessment_cal FINAL (1).pdf>

[Evelyn O'Connor]

Dear Flora

 

I am sorry to note that you are finding it difficult to understand the self-assessment report.  If you specifically identify the areas in the report that you cannot understand, we will try to clarify them for you. 

 

I note in your email below that you state that you are comparing the report with what had originally been requested.  Perhaps you don’t recall that the joint working group went through, over many weeks,  a consideration process  of the many recommendations originally sought in the earlier civil society report.   The agreed National Action Plan endorsed by the Government and civil society superceded that report and is the Plan we are reporting on therefore. 

 

Best regards

 

Evelyn

Government Reform Unit

6045311