Open government is defined as a culture of governance that promotes the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation in support of democracy and inclusive growth (OECD, 2017). Due to the cross-cutting nature of its strategies and initiatives, they require strong institutional arrangements for co-ordination. In this way, countries can ensure goals are met and an adequate involvement of a wide range of stakeholders, including independent institutions, civil society organisations, academia, the media, and others. The centre of government (CoG) has a strategic position to co-ordinate, implement, monitor and evaluate open government strategies and initiatives, since these require a whole-of-government approach and strong political leverage, commitment, support and leadership.
In the majority of OECD countries, the CoG plays an important role in designing, implementing, communicating, co-ordinating, monitoring and evaluating open government strategies and initiatives. In Australia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico and the United Kingdom, the CoG is involved throughout the life-cycle of these strategies. In Canada, France, Japan and Slovenia, the CoG intervenes only at one stage of the process. In Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, other institutions outside the CoG carry out the open government agenda. For instance, in Spain, this role is played by the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Administration and in Finland by the Ministry of Finance.
In 28 OECD countries, the CoG directly consults with stakeholders on policies. Citizens and professional associations (such as trade unions) are the most mentioned by respondents, followed by academic institutions. Australia, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico and the United Kingdom carry out consultations with a wide range of stakeholders, including civil society organisations, the media, independent state institutions and representatives from subnational levels of government. Twenty-four countries link such consultations to the policy cycle, and all of them consult at the time of drafting. For instance, in the Czech Republic, consultations took place for the end-of-term self-assessment report of the second Open Government Partnership (OGP) national plan, the development of the third plan, as well as for the lobbying and whistleblowing regulations. The CoGs of Australia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Latvia and Mexico also consult stakeholders when defining policy priorities and when implementing, monitoring and evaluating policies.
CoGs are using digital platforms to collect suggestions or feedback on proposed policies from citizens. Some countries, like Lithuania, have a single open government platform for such purposes. In other cases, a portal is designed to collect feedback on a specific draft policy. For example, when considering the reform of the federal electoral system in 2016-17, the Privy Council Office of Canada collected feedback on an online platform where citizens were asked their views on democratic practices. After completing the questionnaire, respondents received information on their own perspective compared to the public discussion. By providing a user-friendly interface, the site sought to attract the participation of citizens in general, and the youth in particular. In this way, the CoG was able to raise awareness of the policy and collect data on citizens’ opinion.
