Finland Design Report 2017–2019

Daria Pritup, Independent Researcher
Teemu Laulainen, Independent Researcher

Finland’s third 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... focused on improved access to information and participation of vulnerable groups. Although the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive... involved significant levels of civil society consultation, commitments did not end up being specific and measurable. Moving forward, the next action plan would benefit from the inclusionOGP participating governments are working to create governments that truly serve all people. Commitments in this area may address persons with disabilities, women and girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, tr... More of results-oriented commitments, with identification of responsible institutions and implementation timetables.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. Finland joined OGP in 2012. Since then, Finland has implemented two action plans. This report evaluates the design of Finland’s third action plan.

General overview of action plan

Finland continues to perform highly in areas of transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, participatory budgeting, and anti-corruption. The third action plan builds on themes included in the previous two plans, emphasising easier access to government information and participation across diverse groups of society. The action plan contains several commitments linked to the provision of information on historical administrative reorganisation, tied to the planned landmark reform encompassing social and health services and regional governance. However, the commitments in the third action plan are vague and lack specific indicators to measure implementation and results.

Compared with the previous action plan, the co-creation process of the current plan involved a higher degree of civil society participation. The government held an open call for proposals, followed by a workshop to vote on themes and an online consultation about 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... areas. Finland maintained a robust multi-stakeholder forumRegular dialogue between government and civil society is a core element of OGP participation. It builds trust, promotes joint problem-solving, and empowers civil society to influence the design, imple... consisting of several groups, each with different roles in the co-creation process.

Major stakeholder priorities for Finland’s third action plan included accessibility of services and participation opportunities for various groups, such as minorities and different age groups. Although civil society was highly involved in the co-creation process and the action plan generally reflected these priorities, the final commitments lacked concrete milestones and responsible institutions to monitor implementation.

One notable commitment (3) involves widening Finland’s access to the information principle (which obliges government agencies to make documents relating to decision-making publicly available) to also apply to public services that are incorporated, in other words, produced by corporate entities.

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments 

Recommendations

The IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and to guide implementation of the current action plan.

Five KEY IRM Recommendations:

1. Improve commitment quality through better problem-solution framing, clarifying relevanceAccording to the OGP Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should include a clear open government lens. Specifically, they should advance at least one of the OGP values: transparency, citizen partic... to OGP values, and identifying verifiable milestones.
2. Increase high-level government representation in a multi-stakeholder forum for a more ambitious action plan.
3. Allow for greater civil society participation in shaping the final scale and scope of commitments
4. Extend commitments related to the Regional Government, Health and Social Services Reform to cover several action plans.
5. Assess the feasibility and legal status of proposed commitments during the action plan development process.