Strengthening Openness and Accessibility of the Parliament (GR0064)
Overview
At-a-Glance
Action Plan: Greece National Action Plan 2016-2018
Action Plan Cycle: 2016
Status:
Institutions
Lead Institution: NA
Support Institution(s): NA
Policy Areas
Access to Information, Capacity Building, Open DataIRM Review
IRM Report: Greece Mid-Term Report 2016-2018, Greece End-of-Term Report 2016-2018
Early Results: Did Not Change
Design i
Verifiable: No
Relevant to OGP Values: Yes
Ambition (see definition): Low
Implementation i
Description
Commitment description The institutional strengthening of the Parliament’s Electronic Administration (Hellenic Parliament’s Standing Orders Amendment Published in the Government Gazette No 122 A’/30.6.2016), using the ICT as the "infrastructure technologies" for the communication and quality improvement of citizen services leads to a new concept and transformation of the overall Parliament operation, forming part of the completion of the digital organization of public administration. The organizational changes create new workflows and require new skills. This is not merely the application of technology for better management, but a radical change in administration’s approach and actions, also concerning higher administration’s tactics in individual sectors and pursued strategic objectives for facilitating MPs in exercising their parliamentary duties, and citizens to realize the responsibility and enjoy the benefits of democracy. Concern for electronic processing aiming for interoperability with ministries to assist the procedure for exercising parliamentary control, the strengthening of committee and plenary meetings management support tools, as well as of tools related to legislative process monitoring and draft law and law proposals content processing and the adoption of open data model to provide data related to the parliamentary activities of Parliament and its Members, will strengthen and improve citizens’ awareness and understanding of parliamentary affairs. The Parliamentary Library is the second in size and wealth Library of the Modern Greek state, after the National Library of Greece. Its collections include, besides items in print ( books) exceeding 650,000, the full series of Parliament and Senate Minutes, newspapers and magazines, records, manuscripts, codes, maps and etchings, artwork and historical artifacts. It is a general library, open to the public, yet having as its main task to support MPs, their staff and all Parliamentary Services in the conduct of their parliamentary work. At the same time, it satisfies the research needs of the scientific community within and outside Greek borders, the learning and educational needs of young people, also trying to meet information and all kinds of intellectual and cultural quests of various social groups. The promotion, visibility, and accessibility of its reference list and digital materials through modern and integrated digital services based on international open standards will contribute crucially and decisively to research, as well as to raising active citizenship awareness, and to the preservation and safeguarding of a significant part of our national cultural heritage. The establishment of a network of libraries (academic, public, school, cooperating with the National Library etc.) for decentralization and dissemination of parliamentary information, allows visiting citizens to explore and identify the information sought for. Cooperation with state libraries and publishing houses issuing materials of specific and particular interest related to parliamentary information to systematic, to be added to the online catalog of the Library of Parliament and made public in order to have the widest possible use. The Hellenic Parliament Foundation, through its mission to study and disseminate the principles of parliamentarism and democracy, overall aims at opening the Hellenic Parliament to society. Its actions (publications, exhibitions, educational programs, conferences / seminars) are targeted both to reaching out to a wide range of society groups, and fostering an interactive and two-way relationship with citizens through educational, cultural and educational activities. The means of communication, dissemination and participation in these activities vary, taking into account the needs of individual citizens. The decentralized nature of actions enables for a constant presence of the Hellenic Parliament throughout the country and its citizens. The Youth Parliament, the Parliament's operation training simulation program, in which more than 10,000 students from Greece, Cyprus and Greeks abroad participate annually, encourages involvement and creative expression of young people via innovative actions, also using the Internet and social media in its work. The Youth Parliament conclusions are forwarded to the competent ministry, also constituting part of the ongoing consultation. The organization of the central conference including topics on civil society, individual, social and political rights, deliberative and participatory democracy, direct and representative democracy, and possibly the issue of civil disobedience, aims at triggering reflection on the lack of confidence in persons and institutions’ modes of operation, under the pressing issues of our time. Particular emphasis will be given to institutional changes and representational transformations, under pressing phenomena, such as globalization and the creation of transnational formations, which set the concept of democracy on a new basis. The systematic monitoring of the Hellenic Parliament action plan for 2016-2018 has been assigned to a committee consisting of parliamentary officials chaired by the Secretary General of the Parliament. Moreover, Committee members participate in the horizontal action coordination team for open government at a national level. Objective Enhancing transparency of parliamentary procedures Strengthening citizens’ engagement with the parliament *Depending on planning and design, up to June 2018: 1. Public accessing-availability of the library reference list-bibliographic catalog and digital documents; continuous update and enrichment. 72 2. Implementation of the library network for the decentralization and dissemination of parliamentary information. 3. Collection of publications on parliamentary information and Parliament’s digital directory enrichment-enhancement. 4. New publications release, (their) presentation to the public and digital availability. Presentation of reports at central and regional-local levels, organization of scientific meetings and events. 5. Implementation of Educational Programs - Youth Parliament KB and KG Sessions 6. Implementation of planning concerning enhancement of legislative procedure and draft law and proposals’ content monitoring supportive management tools, from the point of their submission to their voting in total.
IRM End of Term Status Summary
Commitment 34: Parliamentary openness
34. Enhancing the openness and accessibility of the Hellenic Parliament for citizens
The institutional strengthening of the Parliament’s Electronic Administration (Hellenic Parliament’s Standing Orders Amendment Published in the Government Gazette No 122 A’/30.6.2016), using the ICT as the "infrastructure technologies" for the communication and quality improvement of citizen services leads to a new concept and transformation of the overall Parliament operation, forming part of the completion of the digital organization of public administration.
The organizational changes create new workflows and require new skills. This is not merely the application of technology for better management, but a radical change in administration’s approach and actions, also concerning higher administration’s tactics in individual sectors and pursued strategic objectives for facilitating MPs in exercising their parliamentary duties, and citizens to realize the responsibility and enjoy the benefits of democracy.
Concern for electronic processing aiming for interoperability with ministries to assist the procedure for exercising parliamentary control, the strengthening of committee and plenary meetings management support tools, as well as of tools related to legislative process monitoring and draft law and law proposals content processing and the adoption of open data model to provide data related to the parliamentary activities of Parliament and its Members, will strengthen and improve citizens’ awareness and understanding of parliamentary affairs.
The Parliamentary Library is the second in size and wealth Library of the Modern Greek state, after the National Library of Greece. Its collections include, besides items in print (books) exceeding 650,000, the full series of Parliament and Senate Minutes, newspapers and magazines, records, manuscripts, codes, maps and etchings, artwork and historical artifacts. It is a general library, open to the public, yet having as its main task to support MPs, their staff and all Parliamentary Services in the conduct of their parliamentary work. At the same time, it satisfies the research needs of the scientific community within and outside Greek borders, the learning and educational needs of young people, also trying to meet information and all kinds of intellectual and cultural quests of various social groups. The promotion, visibility, and accessibility of its reference list and digital materials through modern and integrated digital services based on international open standards will contribute crucially and decisively to research, as well as to raising active citizenship awareness, and to the preservation and safeguarding of a significant part of our national cultural heritage.
The establishment of a network of libraries (academic, public, school, cooperating with the National Library etc.) for decentralization and dissemination of parliamentary information, allows visiting citizens to explore and identify the information sought for.
Cooperation with state libraries and publishing houses issuing materials of specific and particular interest related to parliamentary information to systematic, to be added to the online catalog of the Library of Parliament and made public in order to have the widest possible use.
The Hellenic Parliament Foundation, through its mission to study and disseminate the principles of parliamentarism and democracy, overall aims at opening the Hellenic Parliament to society. Its actions (publications, exhibitions, educational programs, conferences / seminars) are targeted both to reaching out to a wide range of society groups, and fostering an interactive and two-way relationship with citizens through educational, cultural and educational activities. The means of communication, dissemination and participation in these activities vary, taking into account the needs of individual citizens. The decentralized nature of actions enables for a constant presence of the Hellenic Parliament throughout the country and its citizens.
The Youth Parliament, the Parliament's operation training simulation program, in which more than 10,000 students from Greece, Cyprus and Greeks abroad participate annually, encourages involvement and creative expression of young people via innovative actions, also using the Internet and social media in its work. The Youth Parliament conclusions are forwarded to the competent ministry, also constituting part of the ongoing consultation.
The organization of the central conference including topics on civil society, individual, social and political rights, deliberative and participatory democracy, direct and representative democracy, and possibly the issue of civil disobedience, aims at triggering reflection on the lack of confidence in persons and institutions’ modes of operation, under the pressing issues of our time. Particular emphasis will be given to institutional changes and representational transformations, under pressing phenomena, such as globalization and the creation of transnational formations, which set the concept of democracy on a new basis.
The systematic monitoring of the Hellenic Parliament action plan for 2016-2018 has been assigned to a committee consisting of parliamentary officials chaired by the Secretary General of the Parliament. Moreover, Committee members participate in the horizontal action coordination team for open government at a national level.
Responsible institution: Hellenic Parliament
Supporting institution(s): None
Start date: July 2016 End date: June 2017
Editorial Note: This commitment does not have an identified implementing institution. 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/
Commitment Aim:
The main aim of this commitment was to provide open parliamentary data releases. In addition, it included an extensive list of activities and sub-activities concerning internal processes re-design and e-government tools to support parliamentary proceedings. Activities and milestones apart from the open data part of the commitment had no clear relevance to OGP values.[Note 276: OGP, “Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Progress Report 2016–2018: Greece”, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-mid-term-report-2016-2018-public-comment]
Status
Midterm: Not Started
Prior to this commitment, parliamentary openness had improved with the introduction of an online platform,[Note 277: Parliamentary Transparency (in Greek), https://diafaneia.hellenicparliament.gr/] modelled on the Clarity/Diavgeia system maintained by MAR. The system made openly available a number of parliament decisions on management and administration, the preparation and implementation of its budget, procurement and staffing issues. Following this initiative, the parliament decided to participate for the first time in Greece’s second OGP action plan with two commitments on effectively engaging with different audiences by enhancing its social media policy and offering some of its digital collection online.[Note 278: OGP, “Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Progress Report 2014–2016: Greece”, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-end-of-term-report-2014-2016] Those commitments never started, since no funding was secured for their implementation.
Despite continued efforts from Vouliwatch (a Greek non-profit organization) to persuade the parliament to cooperate on opening more information,[Note 279: Vouliwatch, “Annual Report 2017 – 2018” (in Greek), https://vouliwatch.gr/resources/file/2018/6/13/396dbb51-8c15-4288-afe8-256beefdae1a.pdf] the implementation of this commitment had not started at the midterm review. The IRM researchers made several attempts to reach out to contacts at the Hellenic Parliament but received no response.[Note 280: OGP, “Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Progress Report 2016–2018: Greece”, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-mid-term-report-2016-2018-public-comment]
End of Term: Limited
According to the information available in the OGP project management tool, the Hellenic Parliament has initiated the design and development of a system for managing internal documents that also allows digital signatures.[Note 281: Update retrieved by IRM researchers from the internal OGP Greece project management tool after an email received on on 6 November 2018 from Alexandra Konida, Director of the Department of Informatics & Communication of the Hellenic Parliament. The email states that further updates on commitment implementation will become available on 15 November 2018, when the Parliament will have finalized relevant data collection. ] Training for the system is also indicated as complete. The parliament also made available a catalog of all publications, exhibitions and events that they had undertaken up to November 2017. A new memorandum was signed with the National Library of Greece that allows for the exchange of views and good practices. New openly accessible educational material was uploaded on the parliament’s website as part of the “Democracy and Education” initiative.[Note 282: Hellenic Parliament Foundation, “Democracy & Education” (in Greek), http://foundation.parliament.gr/central.aspx?sId=110I444I1132I646I453528] Finally, according to the provided information, a new team was created within parliament to study ways to improve the presentation and availability of legislative texts.[Note 283: Hellenic Parliament Transparency, “Set up of a Project Team to prepare a study to strengthen the support of the parliamentary process of legislating and filing bills via digital means, facilitating citizens' monitoring of parliamentary legislative process, ensuring Parliament's interoperability within the framework of the National Strategy for Codification and Reform of Greek Legislation”(in Greek), https://diafaneia.hellenicparliament.gr/results/?ada=0%CE%97]
Apart from the aforementioned actions, at the time of writing this report, there is no publicly available evidence on legislative texts being made public or the enhancement of the parliament social media policy. Moreover, no evidence was available that the committee — consisting of parliamentary officials chaired by the Secretary General of the Parliament responsible for OGP action plan commitments — had deliberated on the subject.
In January 2018, Vouliwatch sent an open letter to the President of the Parliament asking about the delay in implementing this commitment, information about any planned actions and clarifications concerning the monitoring of parliamentary processes.[Note 284: Vouliwatch Open Letter to the president of the Hellenic Parliament (in Greek), https://vouliwatch.gr/actions/article/rotame-ti-voyli-ti-ehei-ylopoiisei-apo-tis-desmeyseis-tis-gia-tin-anoikti-diakyvernisi] As a follow up, Vouliwatch has made frequent attempts to receive updates from the parliament about the status of this commitment but they have all been unsuccessful.[Note 285: Stefanos Loukopoulos, Vouliwatch Executive Director, telephone interview with IRM researchers, Athens, 10 October 2018.]
Did It Open Government?
Access to Information: Did Not Change
There is not enough evidence to prove that this commitment has changed parliamentary openness practices in access to information.
Carried Forward?
There is no indication from the parliament that this commitment will be carried forward in a new action plan.