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Posts tagged "UK"

OpenParl News Brief: April 20, 2015

Posted April 20, 2015 at 3:07pm by meganduffy08

News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Ghana, CDD Ghana organized a meeting of African parliamentary monitoring organizations that focused on regional approaches to parliamentary monitoring and considered how a regional network of parliamentary openness advocates and champions can be most effectively leveraged to advance legislative transparency and citizen participation.

Also in Ghana, the Parliament of Ghana in collaboration with Penplusbytes and with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) launched the “Connecting Citizens to Parliament” digital platform. The project aims to provide citizens with another avenue through which they can engage with MPs and monitor government performance on certain issues. Citizens can engage with members on the web-platform or via SMS, mobile app, or social media.

In Morocco, the country’s first web platform for public engagement with parliament is off to a strong start. Nouabook has built a solid user base and a number of MPs are responding to citizens’ questions on the platform. Over 40% of the questions posted on the platform have been answered by the member of parliament in question.

In Italy, OpenPolis and ActionAid launched a web-based advocacy tool called U-Act that allows citizens to enter into a dialogue with policy makers. U-Act allows users to submit and support new ideas, which are then sent to members of parliament.

In Kenya, a joint initiative of the Parliamentary Initiatives Network in partnership with and Transparency International Kenya, Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice (KPTJ) and Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) recently came out with a study titled, “Towards Hazy Horizons.” The study found that that the slow pace of institutional reform and low levels of public awareness and engagement is slowing the implementation of constitutional provisions in chapter six of the constitution.  

In the UK, mySociety is helping constituents track how responsive their MP is on WriteToThem, a tool that allows users to quickly look up who represents them and send those representatives a message. Here, mySociety ranks MPs based on how responsive they were to messages sent using the tool. Some MPs have responded only a handful of times while others have responded to all messages sent over WriteToThem.

Click here to read more.

OpenParl Newsbrief: December 18, 2014

Posted December 18, 2014 at 4:07pm by gregbrownm

This will be the last Newsbrief of 2014. See you in 2015! 

News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In India, PRS Legislative Research held its 7th annual Conference on Effective Legislatures, which featured several lectures exploring the ways in which the parliament can more effectively fulfill its mandate. In preparation for the conference, which took place on December 9, PRS Legislative Research drafted three discussion papers on Parliament’s Role in Financial Oversight, Parliament as a Law Making Body, and Parliamentary Oversight of the Executive.

In Tunisia, Al Bawsala published a report on the development of rules of procedure in the National Constituent Assembly. The report also includes the organization’s recommendations for changes to the rules of procedure that would strengthen the Assembly and make it more transparent.  

In Croatia, noting increasing public distrust of politicians and members of parliament, GONG has released recommendations to improve the management of conflicts of interest and strengthen public integrity systems.

In Kenya, Mzalendo launched the People’s Shujaaz Awards to recognize members of parliament in the National Assembly and Senate that have served as champions of the public interest.

In Malaysia, Sinar Project launched BillWatcher, making it easier to find, search for, and discuss pieces of legislation introduced in the Malaysian parliament.

In Australia, OpenAustralia.org – a website built and managed by the Open Australia Foundation – now includes searchable data on how members of parliament vote.

Click here to read more.

How unique is the new U.S. Data Act?

Posted May 20, 2014 at 11:06am by keseruopblog

This blog was cross-posted from the Sunlight Foundation’s blog.

As we wrote a week ago, the DATA Act was eventually signed by President Obama on a quiet Friday evening. Though we would have expected a bit more fanfare, Sunlight is thrilled to see the new legislation finally being enshrined, as it is supposed to bring a great level of transparency and accountability to federal spending information by ensuring that agencies use a common set of data standards and putting accurate, timely information online for public consumption.

We have long supported the goals of the DATA Act and already wrote a lot about the impact of the law on the US federal and local level. This time, we took a look at where it stands in the global context — are there any similar developments from other governments?

Because of the differences in the legal context and the difficulties in tracking actual implementation, such developments are almost impossible to compare. However, here’s what we found: There have already been a few very inspiring innovations in the field of financial openness, but most of these are not necessarily enshrined in one single law.

Brazil is an exception and a long-time pioneer in the field. As a result of passing the Law of Fiscal Responsibility, federal government agencies of the largest Latin American country have been required to publish all of their financial data online in machine-readable formats and on a daily basis through the country’s Transparency Portal since as early as 2004. The website contains vast amountof detailed and up-to-date information on government revenues and expenditures, procurement processes, federal transfers to municipalities, states and individuals.

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Brazil’s financial transparency portal, http://www.portaltransparencia.gov.br/

Even more importantly, though, information is easy to search on the portal: Transparency International reports that budget lines have both the official and popular names of the initiatives, and as a result, the website is widely used by the media, government officials and citizens. Reports using data from the website led into investigations on the alleged misuse of public funds and ultimately to the resignation of a minister. Civil society also used information to create nice visualizations on how taxpayers’ money is spent in Brazil.

Click here to read more.

Legislative openness highlighted at regional meetings of the Open Government Partnership (OGP-LOWG)

Posted May 16, 2014 at 11:35am by danswislow

Issues of legislative openness and citizen engagement were highlighted at the European and Asia Pacific regional meetings of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) last week, as NDI and partners in the Chilean Congress organized sessions of the Legislative Openness Working Group.

At the Asia Pacific regional conference in Bali (May 6-7), an event hosted by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel of high-level officials from government, parliament and civil society. The panel delved into the challenges that parliaments face in engaging citizens who often have a declining trust in government.

New Zealand Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne described his government’s use of technology to respond to citizens’ increasing expectations, saying, “Not only are people much more willing to engage using the Internet, they expect to transact and engage via the Internet.” Dunne said that nearly 60 percent of New Zealanders report using government services online, a win-win. “This shift in the use of technology gives governments the ability to reach a wider audience for lower cost.”

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Panelists address the audience in a LOWG session at the OGP Asia Pacific regional conference in Indonesia.

New Zealand also has ascribed this strategy to the legislative branch. It was the first country to attempt to crowdsource citizen input into legislation, creating an online “wiki” to collect citizens’ ideas on the 2008 Policing Act. The Parliament continues to allow online citizen submissions around draft bills under consideration as part of its recently launched beta.govt.nz website, which also provides a plethora of information about parliamentary activity.

Click here to read more.

UK commission collecting evidence on “making laws in a digital age”

Posted March 31, 2014 at 4:34pm by gregbrownm

The Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy, a new body of the UK parliament, provides evidence and recommendations that outline how the parliament can better serve its citizens through technology. Recognizing the diverse opportunities that technology provides for creating more open, collaborative forms of governance, the Speaker’s Commission will address a range of issues, including the legislative process, citizen engagement, representation, and evaluating the work of government.

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Over the next few months, the Speaker’s commission will be collecting evidence on the first of these themes: making laws. The legislative process stands to change immensely as digital democracy becomes a reality, and the Speaker’s Commission wants to know what the public thinks are the greatest opportunities for a tech-empowered parliament.

To structure their call for evidence, the Commission has asked a few questions. Could technology improve access to the legislative process? Should technology be used to consider citizens’ opinions when crafting legislation? What are other parliaments doing with technology to make the legislative process stronger?

The Commission, which is made up of MPs and civil society representatives, will provide guidance on how the parliament can become more open and participatory through the use of technology. These recommendations will be based in part on the feedback and comments they receive during their open call for evidence.

If you have thoughts on these topics or valuable information to share, you are encouraged to submit evidence to the Commission via email or through the web forum

(Photo credit: screenshot of Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy website)

Legislative Openness Working Group Launched at OGP Annual Summit in London

Posted November 4, 2013 at 10:40am by danswislow

Haz clic aquí para Español.

A Legislative Openness Working Group, co-anchored by the Government and the Congress of Chile and NDI, was formally launched at the annual summit in London on Thursday of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The working group is a partnership between civil society, parliaments and governments to share good practice on legislative openness, including information about commitments that governments and parliaments can make to engage citizens more actively in the legislative process.

The summit, hosted by the Government of the United Kingdom, convened more than 1,000 members of government and civil society from more than 60 countries. The Leader of the House of Commons, Rt. Hon. Andrew Lansley, CBE, opened the official launch event of the Legislative Openness Working Group, stating, “Expectations are rising. People are used to commenting instantly on events and having their voices heard, and they rightly want to have that immediacy and voice heard in the legislative process.”

To date, 21 countries have indicated their intention to participate in the working group, which is one of five new thematic working groups in OGP.

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“It is a particular honor for the Bicameral Commission for Transparency of the Chilean Congress to co-anchor the working group given the priority that it attaches to this issue of parliamentary openness,” said Senator Hernán Larraín, chair of the bicameral commission. “The Chilean Congress has taken steps to adopt its own action plan as part of OGP, to open Congress and encourage other parliaments to do the same.”

Click here to read more.

OpenParl News Brief: October 31, 2013

Posted October 31, 2013 at 1:15pm by dustinpalmer

News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In Europe, a recent ruling granted further access to the legislative process of the Council of the European Union. The decision is available in all EU languages here. The case was brought by Access Info Europe.

In Poland, Sejmometr published an analysis of the Polish Parliament’s progress towards openness, using the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness as a basis for analysis. 

In India, PRS Legislative Research published an article on the successes and failures of youth Members of Parliament. The Sunlight Foundation discusses the eighth anniversary of the Right to Information Act and implications for political finance transparency.

In Colombia, Transparencia por Colombia offered tips for understanding accountability efforts in the country, while Congreso Visible assessed efforts to bring equality for women to the legislature in the wake of a 2011 commission to improve gender equality.

In South Africa, the Right2Know campaign urged the South African parliament to redraft a bill on transparency to ensure accountable democracy, and offered a number of recommendations. The bill was recently returned to Parliament by the President amid a number of concerns.

Click here to read more.