Summary of Public Comments Received on Open Government Partnership Draft Disclosure Policy

Summary of Public Comments Received on Open Government Partnership Draft Disclosure Policy

November 30, 2011

Below is a complete summary of the comments OGP received over the past month in response to its call for public input on OGP's draft disclosure policy (PDF also attached at bottom of this page).  OGP received a total of four submissions. Thanks to all who contributed their input and expertise.

The OGP Steering Committee will consider these submissions over the coming weeks and revise and finalize the draft disclosure policy by January 2012. 

Going forward, the final policy will be considered a "living" document, and OGP will continue to welcome public input that can help improve it. 

The OGP Support Unit

Submission 1:

Comments on the Draft Open Government Partnership Information Disclosure Policy

November 2011

Centre for Law and Democracy                                       Access Info Europe

info@law-democracy.org                                                info@access-info.org

+1 902 431-3688                                                               +34 91 366 5344

www.law-democracy.org                                                www.access-info.org

Introduction

These Comments contain an analysis by the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) and Access Info Europe (AIE) on the draft Open Government Partnership (OGP) Information Disclosure Policy (draft Policy). The draft Policy was prepared by the OGP and circulated on 25 October 2011 for a one-month comment period.

The Open Government Partnership describes itself as “a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.” In that sense it is an intergovernmental initiative and hence much of the information it holds comes from public bodies.

In addition, the OGP is a multi-stakeholder collaboration, overseen by a Steering Committee of government and civil society representatives. It will receive information from independent experts, from civil society organisations and possible from members of the public. These individuals and organisations understand the role of the OGP in promoting the highest levels of transparency and will be aware when they submit information that it will also be treated in this fashion.

It is therefore appropriate that the OGP, consistent with its mission to promote open government, adopts an access to information policy which is in line with the highest standards for recognition of this fundamental right.

These Comments aim to help the OGP prepare a policy which conforms to the very openness standards that it is advocating for government. They highlight shortcomings in the draft Policy and provide recommendations for reform, as relevant.

The draft Policy has a number of strengths. In particular, it makes a relatively strong commitment to the proactive disclosure of information, along with a commitment to go beyond disclosure and to consult on draft policies. At the same time, we have a number of concerns with the draft Policy. A key concern is the lack of detail in the policy, which has the result of leaving important matters to the discretion of the OGP. Thus, the rules regarding the processing of requests and appeals, as well for applying exceptions, are particularly brief. Some more specific concerns are the failure of the policy to recognise the fundamental human right to information, the significantly overbroad and discretionary regime of exceptions, and the failure of the draft Policy to put in place a system of protections and sanctions.

These Comments are based on international standards regarding the right to information, as reflected in the RTI Rating, prepared by CLD and Access Info Europe.[1] They also reflect better legislative practice in democracies around the world.[2]

1.Right of Access and Scope

The Draft Policy states, in Section I on proactive disclosure, that it operates on a presumption of openness. This is useful, but should be moved to the introductory comments, so that it is clear that it applies to the whole policy, and not just the provisions on proactive disclosure.

The policy should go further and recognise the human right to access information held by public authorities. This should be done given the OGP’s hybrid nature as a quasi-public bodyand also to be true to the OGP mission of promoting the highest standards of open government. The recognition of the right of access to information by the UN Human Rights Committee, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and numerous constitutions around the world should be incorporated directly into the heart of the OGP Disclosure Policy.

In line with the above, the OGP should consider changing the name of its policy. In international circles, the term “disclosure policy” is often associated with the international financial institutions (IFIs) and dates back to the time when information was only made available proactively. Many IFIs have now moved forward and added requesting systems to their policies, but have retained the old names for the sake of continuity. The OGP has no such historical legacy and is a different type of initiative. It should therefore start out with a name which fully reflects a rights-based approach, for example, by naming its policy the OGP Right of Access to Information Policy.

In addition to a clear statement in favour of the presumption of openness, the policy should include interpretive provisions which make it clear that cases of doubt will be resolved in favour of the disclosure of information.

We assume from the language of the draft Policy that it applies to everyone (i.e. that everyone, including legal entities, may make requests), but this should be specified.

It would also be useful to specify that the policy applies to all information held by the OGP. Under Exceptions to Full Disclosure, the draft Policy states that OGP may refuse any request that requires it to “create, develop, or collate information or data that it does not currently collect”. It is not quite clear what this means. It is reasonable to limit the scope of the policy to information that OGP does hold. But OGP should make a commitment under the policy to collate information from records that it does hold, at least unless this would seriously undermine the ability of the organisation to carry out its core work.

2.Requesting Procedures

The draft Policy is quite sparse in relation to the procedures for making requests. It states, rather bizarrely, that requests will be “handled by staff rather than automation”; it is unclear how proper application of the policy could possibly be achieved with an automated system. Requests may be submitted to the “receiving individual”, to the OBP Support Unit Director or to the Steering Committee Co-Chairs “as appropriate”. As far as substance goes, requests should describe information sufficiently clearly so that staff “can reasonably locate information without undue burden”.

These rules appear to be well intentioned but they signally fail to meet minimum better practice standards including by failing to incorporate some core mechanisms of an access to information framework. There is some value in not making a policy of this sort excessively detailed, but the draft Policy goes to the other extreme, with such brevity as to leave the matter of processing of requests almost entirely at the discretion of staff and Steering Committee Co-Chairs.

We recommend that this part of the policy be completely reworked. It should make it clear that it is free to file requests and that requesters need only describe the information sought reasonably clearly and provide a return address for delivery of the information (which may be an email address).

The reference to locating information “without undue burden” should be removed. If OGP keeps its information in good order, it should not be a problem to retrieve it, as long as it is clearly described.

Requesters should be permitted to submit requests via the normal channels which include through the online form but also by email, post, and fax. We also recommend that the reference to the appropriate addressee for requests be removed. Instead, OGP should establish a mailing address, fax line and dedicated email address for receipt of requests, which a dedicated member of staff (see below) would then route internally to the appropriate person.

OGP should commit to providing reasonable assistance to requesters as necessary, for example where they are unable to describe the information sought with sufficient precision or where they need help making a request due to disability, illiteracy or for any other reason. This can be expected to impose very little burden on OGP, and in any case it would be subject to a reasonableness constraint.

The policy should set out a basic framework for the processing of requests. Requesters should be provided with a receipt (ideally with a unique reference number) upon lodging a request and requests should be responded to as soon as possible and in any case within a clear timeframe, say of a maximum of ten working days.

A clear framework should also apply for how information is provided to the requester. Requesters should be able to select from among a list of options for receipt of the information (for example, an electronic copy or a true physical copy). Fees should be able to be imposed only for information which is provided in physical form (i.e. electronic delivery will always be free of charge), and then at reasonable rates. Given the international nature of the initiative, and the challenges requesters in at least some countries will face in making payments, we recommend that the policy be ‘generous’ in this area, for example by providing for the first 100 pages to be free and then limited costs for larger requests, along with a sensible waiver policy to address payment problems.

We believe that all of these rules could be set out in a few paragraphs, as they essentially have above, and that this would provide a far more clear and robust framework for the processing of requests.

3.Duty to Publish

Section I of the draft Policy elaborates on the OGP’s commitment to publish information proactively. This is a welcome part of the draft Policy and it is also welcome that in Section II there is a commitment to post the answers to any requests on the website along with a log of requests and responses. We note that a well developed proactive disclosure policy can reduce the number of requests that have to be processed.

The first paragraph of the proactive disclosure section seems to introduce a tension between the “presumption of openness in all of its activities” and making “available on-line a substantial amount of information”. The word “substantial” qualifies the extent of the proactive disclosure without being specific. It is recommended that there be a commitment to make available proactively in significant detail and in original form an extensive set of information held by the initiative.

The OGP has the opportunity here to do something cutting edge: it is a small operation which is being established with transparency in mind. It is working with and has the support of some leading information technology companies and civil society actors working in the transparency and accountability field. It should be possible to design disclosure into its work by placing open data principles at the core of the OGP’s information management systems. This would not only serve the OGP’s own transparency goals but could act as a model for participating countries.

Instead of doing this, the draft Policy limits itself to a traditional bureaucratic concept of the publication of information in the form of specific documents which are enumerated as a list in the policy. The list comprises: financial data (including donors, annual budget and expenditure); governance information (including agendas, participants and minutes of meetings, and approved policies and documents); information on the implementation of the OGP initiative (including letters of intent and reports from governments and independent experts); and operational activity (the names and titles of key staff, information on vendors).

It is not clear whether the list of classes of information contained in the draft Policy was drawn up after a review of all the information held – or likely to be held – by the OGP. If not, the drafters should go back and design the main categories of information subject to proactive disclosure in an organic fashion based on the specific informational structure of the OGP.

As with the rest of the draft Policy, the section on proactive publication suffers from excessive brevity and a failure to elaborate on details. The lack of descriptions accompanying each class of information make it hard to judge what exactly will be published under headings such as “donors”, “amounts”, or “timeframe”. Will it be all the data on the donors including funding proposals? Will the amounts (of money it is presumed) be published in sufficient detail that it is possible to track expenditure in real time? What exactly is to be published under “timeframe”? All this should be clarified with detailed explanations as to what falls into each class of information.[3] In other words, in the redrafted policy more rigour is needed to avoid future misunderstandings.

We note that the above will facilitate both the implementation and the possibility of evaluating implementation of the disclosure policy. For example, the pledge to publish “Steering Committee meeting and OGP Event minutes/summaries” does not make clear under what circumstances summaries only are acceptable. This effectively leaves this key issue up to the discretion of the OGP, and makes it hard to assess whether or not the policy has been adhered to if, eventually, only summaries rather than the detailed minutes are published.

Similarly, the commitment to transparency regarding “vendors and costs for OGP projects” needs to include precise details of the public procurement information that will be made public. This should include a commitment to transparency of the entire public procurement cycle from advance planning of tenders through to contracting (with copies of contracts being published) through to reports and evaluations. Given the small scale on which OGP operates, this should be relatively easy to achieve and could provide a positive model for participating States.

Not currently included in the proactive disclosure policy is the list of all information held by the OGP. We recommend publication of such a list in Section 7 of this comment, as it is an essential tool for permitting requesters to file requests; this should be incorporated into the proactive disclosure section of the policy.

The draft Policy also fails to provide any detail on how the information to be made public will be published. There is a commitment to publish the information online, and this makes sense given the international nature of the project, but consideration should also be given to making at least some of the information available in hard copy, particularly for dissemination to stakeholders in the OGP participating States which do not have high levels of Internet penetration.

Using multiple channels for disseminating the information is particularly important when it comes to information such as the country reports and evaluations and civil society responses, which should be distributed at the national level in ways that ensure they reach interested parties. This is something which could be worked out with participating States but should be included as a feature of the OGP’s own disclosure policy.

When it comes to online publication, the Policy should require publication of information in formats which make it reusable and meet current Open Data definitions.[4] These include that the information should be published in formats which are machine-readable and open source (or, at a minimum, open specification). Hence, documents should not be published only as PDFs but also in other formats such as Word and Open Office (this was not the case with this draft Policy, which was published only as a PDF file). All data should be made available in easily usable formats such as CSV or XLS (spreadsheet formats). 

In order to publish information in machine-readable formats, OGP should require participating States and other actors to submit documents in appropriate formats. Exceptions to this should be carefully reviewed by the OGP and restricted to exceptional cases.

All original information generated by the OGP itself should be published either free of any intellectual property licence or under a Creative Commons 3.0 Unported Licence or similar licence which permits users to make full use of the information with the only requirement being attribution of the source. This would be consistent with the current website policy on Terms of Use (available at: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/terms-use).[5]

The draft Policy’s proactive section also fails to establish timeframes for publication. It is recommended that these be included in the policy for each class of information. For example, reports submitted to the OGP process should be uploaded immediately upon receipt, and minutes of meetings should be prepared and uploaded within, for example, five working days of the meeting. The policy should aim for the highest standards on publication of spending data, which should be updated frequently, in close to real time.

4.Exceptions and Refusals

This part of the draft Policy is in our view the most problematical. The draft Policy lists four exceptions as follows:

1. Information received with an explicit expectation of confidentiality.
2. Information which, if disclosed, would harm the safety, security or privacy of an individual.
3. Information which, if disclosed, would, “in OGP’s view”, “demonstrably inhibit candid policy dialogue with governments, donors, communities or partners”.
4. “Internal pre-decisional policy documents that are not available for public consultation”, provided that these will be available after three years.

Where a request is refused, OGP will provide a “reasonable and timely justification” for this. Furthermore, OGP reserves the right to reject “spurious or unreasonable requests, including blanket requests”.

In our view, only one of these exceptions, the second one, is appropriately worded. The first one essentially grants a veto over disclosure to the provider of information, regardless of any objective rationale for this or of the presence of absence of any risk of harm. National right to information laws do not allow this, and where international financial institutions have included rules along these lines in their policies, they have been harshly criticised for it.[6] At a minimum, this exception should be limited to information the disclosure of which could be expected to cause serious harm to a legitimate interest of the information provider.

Due consideration here should be given to the nature of the OGP initiative, which is all about fostering transparency. Those who provide information to OGP should do so understanding that the organisation operates under a strong presumption of openness and that it will refuse access to information only in very limited and clearly justifiable circumstances. To permit stakeholders to veto transparency is to reverse this understanding; those who are not ready to act in a transparent fashion should consider whether they are ready to be part of the OGP.

The third exception, for reasons which remain unclear, introduces a subjective element – “in OGP’s view” – which would give OGP wide discretion to refuse information. In a sense, this condition can be read into all of the exceptions, because it is OGP that will decide on the applicability of exceptions, so the matter is always based on its view. But it sends a very wrong signal to include this in the formal test, and it also limits proper oversight (see below). In particular, it restricts any reviewer to assessing whether OGP had reasonable grounds for its decision, instead of deciding whether or not the decision was correct.

The fourth exception is far too broad. Its scope lacks definition (what is an “internal pre-decisional policy document”?) and is potentially very broad. Instead of relying on vague terms which could easily be abused, the policy should set out clear and justifiable interests to be protected, such as the free and frank flow of ideas within an organisation (just as exception 3 protects this between an organisation and its external partners). It should then link these exceptions to a requirement of harm, which is currently absent from this exception.

Furthermore, the fourth exception contains internal contradictions. It is somewhat circular, inasmuch as it relies on the notion of not being “available for public consultation” to restrict exactly such availability. More seriously, it includes two time references which can only be expected to clash, namely “pre-decisional” and “after three years”. The only way to resolve this conflict would be if the three-year rules came into play only if a document remained pre-decisional even after this period, which hardly seems to make sense.

At the same time, the draft Policy also seems to have overlooked certain exceptions which it might need to apply. Thus, at present, the policy would not protect legally privileged information or information the disclosure of which might harm the commercial interests of others.

The draft Policy’s power to reject “spurious or unreasonable requests, including blanket requests” is also not justifiable. Some national laws do allow for the rejection of vexatious or repetitive requests, but the terms ‘spurious’ and especially ‘unreasonable’ are broader than this.

The rejection of blanket requests runs counter to the very nature of the OGP initiative. It is entirely possible that a “blanket” request might be made for the same data from each of the countries which are participating in the initiative, and there is nothing inherently problematic or wrong about such a request. Blanket requests should, as appropriate, be dealt with under the regime for processing requests, which requires the information to be described sufficiently clearly to allow it to be identified, and for assistance to be provided where this is not the case, rather than through a power to reject the request wholesale.

In line with international standards and better international practice, the policy should incorporate a public interest override, so that information will still be released where the benefits of disclosure outweigh the harm to the protected interests.

Consideration should be given to the idea of expanding on what is presumably the real purpose of the three-year reference in the fourth exception, namely to limit the overall duration of exceptions. It would be appropriate to apply some sort of overall time limit to all of the exceptions except the second one.

Consideration should be given to making it clear in the policy that, where only part of a record is covered by an exception, the rest of the record will be disclosed (severability). In apply this rule, access should be granted to all information except that which is clearly covered by an exception. For example, a report provided by a confidential source could still be released, with only the information, which might reveal the identity of that source blacked out.

The requirement to provide “reasonable and timely justification” for the rejection of a request is useful. However, timeliness should, as noted above, be addressed through the rules on processing of requests. It would be useful to replace the term ‘reasonable’ with a requirement to give clear reasons for any refusal, including the specific grounds in the policy upon which the refusal is based. Finally, requesters should be notified of their right to appeal against any refusal.

5.Appeals

The draft Policy provides that when the OBP Support Unit or Co-Chairs refuse a request for information, the requester may appeal to the full Steering Committee. This is a form of internal appeal. The grounds for this type of appeal are very limited, as it is engaged only when a request has been refused. Breach of other aspects of the policy, including the procedural rules that we recommend be added, are not included, and nor are failures to respect the policy’s proactive disclosure commitments.

A second problem with this internal appeal is that the draft Policy fails to establish any procedures for the processing of appeals. It is not necessary to include a lot of detail here but at least some minimum framework of rules – for example, as to the timelines for processing appeals and matters such as the rights of the complainant to be heard – should be provided for.

We also recommend that the OGP put in place a second, external appeal, to be heard by a group of respected external experts. Individuals could be appointed by the Steering Committee for a fixed period of time, but the body called ‘together’ (virtually) only as necessary, when an appeal is presented. This would presumably be relatively rarely, thereby ensuring that the cost and effort of this would not be onerous.

6.Sanctions and Protections

Most national right to information laws provide for sanctions for officials who wilfully obstruct access to information. This is probably not realistic in the context of the OGP, but it would be useful for the policy to commit the organisation to incorporating performance in applying the policy into its staff appraisal systems, and to indicate that serious breaches of the policy will be treated as disciplinary matters.

Better practice also calls for protection for officials who, in good faith, release information in response to a request, even if it is ultimately decided that they should not have done so. The same is true for individuals who release information on wrongdoing (whistleblowers).

7.Promotional Measures

As a small organisation, it is not necessary for OGP to put in place the full range of promotional measures that might be required for larger official bodies. We believe, however, that it would be useful to put in place at least three measures. First, OGP should identify a dedicated staff member with responsibility for receiving and processing requests for information, and for making sure that all of the proactive publication commitments in the policy are met and that the information is kept up-to-date. This will facilitate requests and also help ensure that implementation of the policy is not relegated to the back burner.

Second, OGP should make available on its website a full list of the more important record and all types of records that it holds. This will facilitate the making of requests for information, and help requesters to present more targeted requests, ultimately potentially saving OGP time and effort.

Third, the policy should require the OGP to publish an annual report on implementation of the policy. This should, among other things, outline the efforts OGP has made in the areas of proactive disclosure and responding to requests (including statistical information about requests, such as how many have been lodged, how they have been responded to and so on), as well as a description of any challenges.

Submission 2:

Dear Open Government Partnership (OGP),

I congratulate you on your progress thus far, especially considering the limited time and resources available to you.  I look forward to collaborating with you and others in seeking the best approaches for progress in Open Government. 

This message contains my response to your "Call for Public Input: Open Government Partnership Draft Disclosure Policy", as described on your website as being published October 25, 2011:

http://www.opengovpartnership.org/call-public-input-open-government-partnership-draft-disclosure-policy

1.  Suggestion:  Use the email-addresses that interested people have already been provided to the OGP to notify those people about opportunities for collaboration with the OGP (e.g., commenting on its Disclosure Policy).

The OGP's homepage says that it will "Keep Me Posted" by sending me "email updates on OGP activities".  Even though I provided my email-address shortly after the OGP was created last summer, I have not received any "email updates" through that mechanism.  I did learn of the current "Call for Public Input" through an email-listserv for the "OGP Civil Socie ty Working Group" but which is reserved, according to the OGP website, "for the civil society community only. "

2.  Suggestion:  As the OGP does frequently refer to "civil society", but is not clear in its meaning, then the OGP should adopt the definition, cited in Wikipedia as being used by CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, i.e., ?the arena, outside of the family, the state, and the market where people associate to advance common interests?.

That definition of "civil society" would make it clear (i.e., transparent) that any interested citizen is equally welcome to participate in the OGP initiative (and that the OGP is not restricted only to formal "civil society organizations").

See discussion at CIVICUS "Civil Society Index" (page 15): http://www.civicus.org/new/media/CSI_Methodology_and_conceptual_framework.pdf

 3.  Suggestion:  As part of any public invitation to provide "Feedback on Draft Policies" (see Section III), the OGP should allow citizens to review the comments of others -- before making their own -- as per the OGP's own requirement for a public consultation forum that is "multi-stakeholder".

Keeping citizens' comments a secret from them prevents citizen collaboration prior to the comment deadline.  For many years, the U.S. government has provided online access to public comments received before the comment deadline (see http://www.regulations.gov).  This can now be done easily and cheaply with an archived email-listserv. For example, see this email discussion-thread of additive input about drafting the OGP Disclosure Policy:

http://groups.google.com/group/ogp-civil-society/browse_thread/thread/2c3b471723c19e1c?hl=en_US

I do not consider this message confidential; it may be shared with anyone.  Please let me know if you have questions (or if I have made an error), either by contacting me directly or, preferably, in an open manner (e.g., the OGP's email- listserv to which I've also posted this message).

Sincerely,

Stephen Buckley

Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA

member, NCDD and IAP2-USA

http://www.twitter.com/transpartisan

Submission 3:

Hello,

I am writing in response to the request for comments on OGP's Draft Disclosure Policy.

I do not think that the first exception is necessary or that it aligns with open government principles, as follows:

- "Information received by OGP which has an explicit expectation of

confidentiality".

This exception essentially allows anyone to provide information to OGP and guarantee that it will be kept secret simply by including with the information a request that it be kept confidential.

If a government had this exception in its disclosure policy, it would be abused regularly.

All information should be disclosed unless it will cause harm (and, even then, the release of the information can be in the public interest if it will prevent greater harm, so there should also be a public interest override built into any disclosure policy).

The second and third exceptions cover the types of information that, if released, will cause harm.

I hope this helps, and please send back any questions.

Sincerely,

Duff Conacher, Founding Director of Democracy Watch

http://democracywatch.ca

Principal, GoodOrg.ca Consulting

http://GoodOrg.ca

Submission 4:

This is pretty solid draft. In practical terms, releasing a tax filing and audit report is an easy yet useful way to disclose accurate financials. Any other solution can be a pain to keep up to date. The tax forms are public records anyway, but posting them proactively is a good faith thing that people like me appreciate. 

You may not have a plan for annual audits, but it's a pretty good idea, and writing it into the disclosure rules gives you an excuse/requirement to do it. You'll get a ~10 page summary report from the auditors, which can usually be posted without redaction.

Jonathan Eyler-Werve

Global Integrity

Update on OGP Draft Disclosure Policy

November 28, 2011

The call for public input on the OGP Draft Disclosure Policy is now closed. Thanks to all who submitted their comments!

We will be collating all of the comments that we received over the past month and posting them here this week.

Over the coming weeks, the OGP Steering Committee will review all comments and revise the draft policy.  A new version of the OGP disclosure policy will be finalized and published in early 2012.

Thanks again to all who contributed their thoughts on this important document.

The OGP Support Unit

Call for Public Input: Open Government Partnership Draft Disclosure Policy

Send us your comments and suggestions!

The Open Government Partnership Steering Committee is currently drafting an information disclosure policy for the initiative and wants your input!  

We welcome your comments and suggestions on this policy, which we have shared below.  The Steering Committee will be accepting public comments for a one-month period, concluding on November 25, 2011. 

OGP will consolidate and publish all comments that it receives on its website.

Following the one-month public comment period, the Steering Committee and Support Unit will consider all inputs, and propose a revised OGP disclosure policy for approval at the December 6, 2011 OGP Steering Committee meeting in Brazil. 

The final policy will be published following Steering Committee approval in December 2011.

Please send all comments to the OGP Support Unit at info@opengovpartnership.org with the subject title  “disclosure policy comments.”

OGP Draft Information Disclosure Policy

October 25, 2011

The Open Government Partnership is committed to modeling best practices and embodying the principles of transparency, accountability and citizen engagement that it promotes. OGP is committed to being accountable to its stakeholders and recognizes that an essential part of that is sharing information in a transparent and proactive way.

I. Proactive Disclosure of Information

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) operates on a presumption of openness in all of its activities. It proactively makes available on-line a substantial amount of information, including:

Financial support:

• Donors
• Amounts
• Timeframe
• Annual budget/expenses

Governance:

• Governance Structure and Policies
• Names, titles and affiliations of Steering Committee Members
• Steering Committee meeting and OGP Event dates
• Steering Committee meeting and OGP Event agendas
• Steering Committee meeting and OGP Event participants
• Steering Committee meeting and OGP Event minutes/summaries
• Policies and Documents approved by the Steering Committee

Implementation and Related Activities:

• Names of all OGP Participating Countries and associated letters of intent
• Names, roles and contacts of all OGP partners (for example, the Networking Mechanism and the Independent Reporting Mechanism)
• Government Self-Assessment Reports
• Independent Reporting Mechanism Assessments

Operations:

• Names and titles of key staff
• Vendors and costs for OGP projects

II. Requests for Information

Information requests received by the OGP Support Unit via the online contact form will be handled by staff rather than automation,  and either be addressed directly by the receiving individual or forwarded to the OGP Support Unit Director and/or Steering Committee Co-Chairs as appropriate. These requests should describe the information sought with enough specificity that staff can reasonably locate information wihtout undue burden.

Information released to any requester will also be posted on the OGP web site, along with a log of requests and responses.

III. Feedback on Draft Policies

OGP will actively seek public feedback on draft policies that relate to the overall practices of the initiative (such as the OGP Disclosure Policy itself).  These policies will be published online and whenever possible (resources allowing) in relevant languages with due notice and a minimum of 30 days for the public to comment.  All comments will be made public, along with the final version of any document under public consultation.

For any draft documents that are submitted to the Steering Committee for discussion and approval but not subject to prior public consultation (for example internal governance protocols for the OGP Steering Committee), the final document will be published promptly on the OGP website.

IV. Exceptions to Full Disclosure

While OGP is committed to having a fully transparent and proactive disclosure system in place, information may be considered confidential and not available to the public under the following circumstances:

• Information received by OGP which has an explicit expectation of confidentiality;
• Information which if disclosed would do identifiable harm to the safety or security of an individual, or violate his or her rights or privacy;
• Information that in OGP’s view, if disclosed, would demonstrably inhibit candid policy dialogue with governments, donors, communities or partners;
• Internal pre-decisional policy documents that are not available for public consultation.  Pre-decisional policy documents not subject to public consultation will be archived and available on request after three years.

In the rare cases where OGP is unable to satisfy an information request, we will provide a reasonable and timely justification as to why we are unable to provide information.

OGP reserves the right to refuse spurious or unreasonable requests, including blanket requests, and any request that would require OGP to create, develop, or collate information or data that it does not currently collect.

When the OGP Support Unit and/or Co-Chairs cite an exception to withhold information, the requester may appeal that denial to the full Steering Committee.

V. Languages

While OGP recognizes the necessity of using multiple languages to support full participation in a multi-lateral initiative, due to the limitations of start-up, staffing, location and funding, the public website will use English as its primary langauge in the near term.  Key documents will be published in this language, and whenever possible the support unit will also translate key documents into Portuguese, French and Spanish.  We also encourage our members and colleagues to undertake translations of OGP materials for us to share on the OGP website with appropriate credits and disclaimers.