Public Property Open Data (GR0045)

Context An e-service regarding the registration & detailed information of public property is under construction. The main objective is to avoid encroachment & unregulated exploitation of public property. An e-auction platform for permitted leasing of seashore sites is also scheduled. Commitment description Free access to data regarding public property concerning: Seashore (Registry and ID Database of defined seashore line, beach, riparian and previously defined seashores, related legislation, geospatial data and open eauctions) Public Welfare Property (Public Welfare Property Registry Database - calls for competitions ect.) Expropriations (Registry and ID database, expropriations declaration or withdrawal , related legislation) Property Value Determination through specific platform Housing Public services (open calls for competitions, office modulation, technical specifications files, administrative decisions) Construction and Maintenance of public building property (e.g. data regarding competitions for building constructions ) OGP Values Access to public information, citizens participation, transparency and accountability. Implementation bodies: General Secretariat of Public Property and General Secretariat of Informational Systems & Management Support of Ministry of Finance. Objective Main objective of the commitment is to provide free access to public property data, including geospatial data, as well as open e-auctions and calls for competitions Means for the implementation General Secretariat of Public Property has already implemented and is in process of the update and improvement of an e-services platform for public property. Data will be gradually updated & enriched. Additionally, a platform for open e-auctions will be formed with the support of General Secretariat of Informational Systems & Management Support . It will serve the seashore auctions and possibly other public assets in the future. The Ministry of Finance will provide guidelines to citizens and companies about the data access and use of e-auctions platform.

Commitment 15 and 16: Commitments on Economy

✪Commitments 15. Public Property Open Data

An e-service regarding the registration & detailed information of public property is under construction. The main objective is to avoid encroachment & unregulated exploitation of public property. An e-auction platform for permitted leasing of seashore sites is also scheduled. Free access to data regarding public property concerning:

• Seashore (Registry and ID Database of defined seashore line, beach, riparian and previously defined seashores, related legislation, geospatial data and open e-auctions);
• Public Welfare Property (Public Welfare Property Registry Database - calls for competitions etc.);
• Expropriations (Registry and ID database, expropriations declaration or withdrawal, related legislation);
• Property Value Determination through specific platform;
• Housing Public services (open calls for competitions, office modulation, technical specifications files, administrative decisions);
• Construction and Maintenance of public building property (e.g. data regarding competitions for building constructions).

Responsible Institution(s): General Secretariat of Public Property; General Secretariat of Informational Systems & Management Support of Ministry of Finance

Start Date:  July 2016 End Date: December 2017

Commitments 16. KPI’s [Key Performance Indicators] for the implementation of Public and EU Financed Projects

The aim of this commitment is to provide, on a specific website, necessary information about the project management of all projects financed by the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) and the PIP based on specific indicators as defined in the Operational Programs and in cooperation with Greek Statistic Authority (ELSTAT). The key elements of this commitment related to the implementation details of the projects, geospatial mapping with presentation of project metadata, connection to indicators for monitoring the impact of projects in society and feedback collection from citizens about the projects.

Responsible Institution(s): Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism; Public Secretariat of Public Investments and NSRF

Start Date:  July 2016 End Date: December 2018

Editorial Note: The action plan text has been abridged by the IRM. For the full version, please see https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-national-action-plan-2016-2018/

Editorial note: Commitment 15 is clearly relevant to OGP values as written, has transformative potential impact, and is substantially or completely implemented and therefore qualifies as a starred commitment. 

Commitment Aim:

This set of commitments on economy aimed to revise public property management by opening up public data and providing an e-auction platform to lease coastal property locations. Prior to this commitment the leasing of coastal areas was under the authority of municipalities and the economic results were limited.^{[Note 145: What is changing in leasing coastal areas (in Greek) https://money-tourism.gr/ti-allazi-stin-misthosi-tou-egialou/ ]} The function of the e-auction platform purports to raise public revenues stemming from public lands leasing. Commitment 16 aims to publish uniform, detailed data on the implementation of public and EU-financed projects and involve the public in assessing their social and economic impact. Commitment 15 sets out to provide the public with specific data, such as:

• Registry and ID Database of defined seashore line
• Public Welfare Property
• Construction and Maintenance of public building property
• Public Property Value Determination

Status

Commitment 15. Public property open data

Midterm: Limited

This commitment had limited implementation during 2016 - 2017. The Ministry of Finance put in place a team of public sector employees dedicated to moving the commitment forward. Some pilot e-auctions took place in June 2017 for a limited number of coasts. According to the Ministry of Finance OGP management team, 50 more coastal areas were expected to go through the new e-auction platform by the end of 2017 and 100 more throughout 2018.^{[Note 146: Ministry of Finance, OGP project management team (Dimitris Kapopoulos, Ms Mourtzinou, Ms Chrysopoulou), interview with IRM researchers, 21 July 2017.]} Moreover, the listed datasets were expected to be published during 2018 depending on releasing a decision that defines guidelines for their classification. Early results showed a reduction in the administrative burden of public services and the minimization of public agencies’ physical contact with citizens.^{[Note 147: Ibid.]}

End of term: Complete

The Ministry of Finance fully completed this commitment and continued to lease coastal areas via the e-auction platform throughout 2017 and 2018.^{[Note 148: In.gr news, “More online auctions are coming” (in Greek), http://www.in.gr/2018/05/11/economy/oikonomikes-eidiseis/erxontai-alles-130-dimoprasies-gia-ti-xrisi-aigialou-kai-paralion/]} For those interested in participating in the auction the Ministry issued guidelines,^{[Note 149: The guidelines for participants (in Greek), https://goo.gl/hyvuc7]} the programmed auctions^{[Note 150: A list with scheduled auctions (in Greek), https://goo.gl/ySXk6K]} and a map showing the coastal areas in which e-auctions took place.^{[Note 151: The map, https://www.minfin.gr/web/g.g.-demosias-periousias/chartes-demopratoumenon-aigialon ]} According to the Ministry project management team, 61 auctions took place by the end of 2017. This number exceeds the initial estimate of 50 auctions that took place during the midterm progress assessment. In 2018 a total of 179 auctions have been completed and this number also greatly exceeds the initial estimate of 100. Overall, auctions were conducted in 18 of the 43 prefectures that have coastal areas. According to employees from the General Secretary for Public property,^{[Note 152: Ministry of Finance OGP project management team (Dimitris Kapopoulos, Ms Mourtzinou, Ms Chrysopoulou), interview with IRM researchers, 2 September 2018.]} the difference between starting and closing prices of online auctions was approximately €650,000.

The Ministry of Finance released most of the listed commitment datasets. An aggregate list of the datasets is publicly available.^{[Note 153: Dataset (in Greek), http://data.gov.gr/dataset?q=ΓΕΝΙΚΗ+ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΕΙΑ+ΔΗΜΟΣΙΑΣ+ΠΕΡΙΟΥΣΙΑΣ]} Specifically the Ministry of Finance published datasets for the registry of designated coastal areas, the public property and welfare registry and the registry of expropriations. The release of the dataset concerning public property value determination is still pending. However, the Ministry of Finance advanced the release of additional relevant datasets that were not officially included in the action plan, such as datasets concerning the concession of coastal areas use for port works,^{[Note 154: Dataset (in Greek), http://data.gov.gr/dataset/paraxwrhsh-xrhshs-aigialoy-kai-paralias-gia-kataskeyh-limenikwn-ergwn]} the legislation for public welfare property,^{[Note 155: Dataset (in Greek), http://data.gov.gr/dataset/nomo8esia-nomologia-koinwfelwn-perioysiwn-kai-sxolazoyswn-klhronomiwn]} and an online index for public welfare property that contains a series of information about the institutions that possess and manage public property.^{[Note 156: Dataset (in Greek), http://data.gov.gr/dataset/https-www1-gsis-gr-gspp-dhpe-faces-fakelos-jspx]}

Commitment 16. KPIs for the implementation of public and EU-financed projects

Midterm: Not Started

The Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism began some preparatory actions that would enable implementation. Such actions included the insertion of publicly-funded project descriptions in the IT system. The release of the actual data was expected by the end of 2018. The implementation of this commitment therefore had not effectively started at the midterm review point.

End of term: Limited

This commitment showed some but insufficient progress following midterm evaluation. A new website that displays information about the National Strategic Framework data is currently under development at anaptyxi2020.ops.gr. This website provides citizens with aggregate data (see Figure 1) on the total budget, contracts and payments for EU-funded projects in 11 thematic areas^{[Note 157: The 11 thematic areas include: Research and Innovation, Information and Communication, Competitiveness, Eco - Economy, Climate Change, Environment, Sustainable Transport, Employment, Social Inclusion, Education.]} and the total amounts of approved projects per Region. On the project grants webpage, citizens can search the performance of individual projects either by keywords or geographic and thematic areas. As far as implementation of KPIs per individual projects is concerned, only output KPIs are currently available.^{[Note 158: Christos Bouras, Associate at the Agency for NSRF Coordination, interview with IRM researcher, Athens, August 2018,.]} A page dedicated to open data is under construction but at the time of writing no datasets could be retrieved.^{[Note 159: National Strategic Framework Data, http://anaptyxi2020.ops.gr/en-us/ODHelp]} The commitment will be fully implemented when social impact KPIs are inserted into the IT system and when a participatory element is available for citizens to interact with the website by submitting their comments and evaluations. A screenshot of the anaptyxi2020.ops.gr website is available below (see Figure 1: National Strategic Framework Data Dashboard).

Figure 1 - National Strategic Framework Data Dashboard

Did It Open Government?

Commitment 15. Public property open data

Access to Information: Major

To ensure fair public property management for all citizens, the Ministry of Finance launched a central e-auction platform through which small and medium-sized businesses can directly rent coastal areas in a transparent manner.^{[Note 160: Coastal Areas Auction, Ministry of Finance (in Greek). https://www.minfin.gr/web/g.g.-demosias-periousias/aigialos]} In terms of modernizing administrative practices, the results of this pilot e-auction application represents a major step forward as with the release of a series of coast relevant datasets the government managed to provide interactive maps that facilitate locating available coasts.^{[Note 161: Coastal areas boundaries datasets, (in Greek),   http://www.data.gov.gr/dataset/ka8orismenos-aigialos ]} The once-opaque leasing process has become transparent and thus accessible to more small and medium-sized businesses that wish to start tourism operations. Since the launch of this application, the process of interaction with public officials, and the significant time once required to complete the leasing process, has been simplified. The old (non-electronic and offline) auctioning method is still in use in parallel with the e-auction system, however, the Project Management at the General Secretariat of Information Systems informed the IRM researchers that there is a draft ministerial decision to propose that all coastline leasing auctions that the Ministry of Finance is responsible for should take place electronically.

Commitment 16. KPIs for the implementation of public and EU-financed projects

Access to Information: Marginal

This commitment meant to increase transparency of large-scale projects funded by the state and EU budgets by publishing performance KPIs. These performance KPIs would enable citizens to make informed judgments about the social impact of the projects. This information was either scattered or inaccessible before development of the commitment. While the published indicators may help citizens compile an overall picture for the implementation of public and EU-funded projects, the performance KPIs that would enable a powerful monitoring are still missing. According to the General Director of Vouliwatch, the implementation of this commitment adds little value in providing citizens with aggregate information and tools to make sense of the progress of publicly-funded projects and contribute their assessments.^{[Note 162: Stefanos Loukopoulos, Vouliwatch General Director, telephone interview with IRM researcher, October 2018.]} According to the evidence provided, this commitment has only marginally changed government practice.

Carried Forward?

A new action plan has not yet been initiated and thus it remains unclear whether these commitments will be carried forward. A modified version of commitment 16 with emphasis on regularly publishing performance KPIs data and visualizations would be valuable. Moreover, in the context of co-creating commitments with civil society, the Ministry of Economy could cooperate with Open Knowledge Greece, who produced a similar project called Red Flags that algorithmically processes EU-funded projects data with the aim of proactively monitoring performance.