Finland Action Plan Review 2023-2027

Finland’s fifth OGP action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... continues advancing priorities such as civic participation, public service training, and open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici.... The commitments mostly pursue incremental improvements to government practices. The national dialogues, which Finland started in the previous action plan, could yield promising results if the government creates stable mechanisms to utilize input from the dialogues in policy-making processes. The action plan could also improve access to information if government institutions reach a broad agreement for publication of open data in emergency situations.

Finland’s fifth action plan contains three broad themes. Each theme comprises two commitments, some focusing on one policy area and some combining several issues. The action plan seeks to improve opportunities for public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio..., build public officials’ knowledge and skills in open government, foster cross-sectoral collaboration, promote open access to data and ethical use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and share best practices in open government within and beyond Finland.

Most of the policy areas are carried over from previous action plans. However, several involve novel elements. For example, CommitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... 2.1 introduces fighting the spread of mis- and disinformation. The fifth action plan also returns to the issue of youthRecognizing that investing in youth means investing in a better future, OGP participating governments are creating meaningful opportunities for youth to participate in government processes. Technical ... More participation addressed in the second plan. This time, the government promises to implement the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s recommendations on increasing young people’s participation and trust in government. Several commitments also foster open government in the wellbeing services regions – a new administrative level that started operation in early 2023.

The Ministry of Finance led an inclusive, participatory, and broad-based co-creation process that extended over nine months. The commitments were based on input from a number of civil society organizations (CSOs) and government institutions collected at events such as the national CSO Academy, dedicated meetings across Finland, online surveys, and discussions in the OGP multi-stakeholder forum (MSF). Civil society stakeholders are generally happy with the selected priorities[1] and the way the government took CSOs’ input into account.[2] However, they noted the government could use simpler and more concise language when soliciting input from CSOs, especially underrepresented groups who are unfamiliar with OGP.[3]

The government decided to keep the number of commitments in the action plan low.[4] This could help the government focus its efforts on meaningful progress in the selected areas. However, the design of the commitments mostly seeks to continue or modestly expand the daily operation of regular activities (often started in previous action plans), without a clear vision of how each commitment could achieve a qualitative change in government openness. Having chosen a four-year action plan, Finland is required to schedule a refresh period at the two-year mark. During this refresh, the IRM recommends the Ministry of Finance to tap into the collective expertise of the open government working group and the new Open Democracy network to raise the ambitionAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should “stretch government practice beyond its current baseline with respect to key areas of open government.” Ambition captures the po... of the commitments and develop measurable outcome-level indicators to monitor their progress.

The potential results of this action plan are further constrained by some activities’ internal focus to the public administration and lack of public-facing measures. Such activities can be found, for example, under Commitment 3.1 (Enhancing the sharing of good practices in open government) and Commitment 2.1 (Preventing the spread of mis- and disinformation). When implementing these commitments, the government could consider creating feedback loops and monitoring mechanisms for the public. For instance, the Ministry of Finance could disseminate best practices among the public, so that citizens would have a tool to benchmark actual government practices against. The government could also involve civil society in discussions on improving public access to data and develop mechanisms for the public and experts to monitor government institutions’ compliance with the guidelines for the ethical use of AI.

This review highlights two commitments that could improve government openness if the government develops mechanisms to foster deeper institutional change in these areas. First, Commitment 1.1 could strengthen the impact of the national dialogues established during the fourth action plan with its focus on the utilization of input from the dialogues in public policymaking. Second, Commitment 2.1 could result in better public access to information at times of emergencies. As the government struggled to provide public access to the data behind policy decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, this commitment seeks to develop a common understanding within the public administration on good data publication practices in emergency situations. To increase the impact of this commitment, the IRM encourages the government to systematically monitor government institutions’ compliance with the best practices.

Promising Commitments in Finland’s 2023–2027 Action Plan

The following review looks at the two commitments that the IRM identified as having the potential to realize the most promising results. Promising commitments address a policy area that is important to stakeholders or the national context. They must be verifiable, have a relevant open government lens, and have modest or substantial potential for results. This review also provides an analysis of challenges, opportunities, and recommendations to contribute to the learning and implementation process of this action plan.

Table 1. Promising commitments

[1] Open Knowledge Finland, Opinion on the 5^th OGP action plan, 23 August 2023, https://www.okf.fi/fi/2023/11/23/lausunto-avoimen-hallinnon-v-toimintaohjelma/

[2] Riitta Kittilä (Finnish Federation for Social Affairs and Health (SOSTE), member of the Finnish civil society advisory board (KANE) and open government working group), interview by the IRM, 20 December 2023.

[3] Riitta Kittilä (SOSTE), interview by the IRM, 20 December 2023.

[4] Katju Holkeri (Ministry of Finance, OGP Point of Contact), correspondence with the IRM, 19 December 2023.