Malta End-of-Term Report 2015-2017

Malta’s second action plan contained five commitments focusing on processes in the public sector including trainings, e-services, and publication of information. Three commitments were not clearly relevant to OGP values and one led to marginal improvements in opening government. The next action plan needs to include more specific, ambitious actions that advance openness and public participation. The government needs to improve the engagement of civil society to strengthen the formulation and monitoring of the action plan.

Commitment	Overview	Well-Designed? *	Major or Outstanding Results? **
5. Social Dialogue	The commitment’s aim to improve effectiveness of the public consultation portal through the organisation of workshops is up to date and marginally improved government disclosure of information.	No	No

* Commitment is evaluated by the IRM as being specific, relevant, and potentially transformative
** Commitment is evaluated by the IRM as having major or outstanding results in terms of the ‘Did it Open Government?’ variable

The Ministry for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties (MSDC) drafted the action plan following consultations with select civil society organisations (CSOs). The consultation process was not open to a broad range of stakeholders. Beyond a first consultation, no other multistakeholder consultation occurred.

Malta did not act contrary to OGP process A country is considered to have acted contrary to process if one or more of the following occurs: The National Action Plan was developed with neither online or offline engagements with citizens and civil society The government fails to engage with the IRM researchers in charge of the country’s Year 1 and Year 2 reports The IRM report establishes that there was no progress made on implementing any of the commitments in the country’s action plan

No/little civil society involvement Narrow/ little governmental consultation

Malta’s second action plan comprised five commitments, divided into two themes: improving public services and increasing public integrity. No commitment was completed during the action plan period though two commitments were substantially complete. Three of the five commitments had unclear relevance to OGP values and only one of the five had a marginal impact on opening government in the country.

Commitment Title	Well-designed? *	Complete (Year 2)	Major or Outstanding Results? **	Overview
1. Participation of women in the public service	No	No	No	This commitment will introduce family-friendly measures for women in the workplace that include reduced working hours and strategic leadership training. There is no evidence of changes in government practice that advance female participation in public service or decision making and the commitment formulation does not clearly increase access to information, citizen participation, or public accountability.
2. Training and knowledge sharing amongst public service employees	No	No	No	As written, the commitment does not specify training areas, targets, timelines, or intended results for the training and development of public service employees. There is unclear relevance to OGP values as the listed activities are internal and do not have a public-facing element.
3. E-services online	No	No	No	To improve eGovernment service delivery, this commitment will increase public interaction with online and mobile applications. Though implementation is substantial with the development of new public service applications, the commitment lacks specificity pertaining to the release of government-held information or increasing participation in the civic space.
4. Public access to information	No	No	No	This commitment will increase the public’s access to information by periodically publishing government information online and centralizing access from a single platform. Recent activities undertaken by the different government ministries are provided on their corresponding websites as a result of this commitment, but future design could be more specific in measurable information to be disclosed.
5. Social dialogue	No	No	No	This commitment seeks to increase dialogue with civil society by enhancing the effectiveness of the government consultation portal through organising a series of workshops. Though on three workshops could be verified, information provided on the portal of past public consultations is up to date.

* Commitment is evaluated by the IRM as being specific, relevant, and potentially transformative
** Commitment is evaluated by the IRM as having major or outstanding results in terms of the ‘Did it Open Government?’ variable