Transparency Criteria (IL0029)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?
The use of the term “transparency” has become popular in recent years. Many public authorities and elected officials declare that they identify with the values of transparency and conduct themselves accordingly. However, the term is ambiguous and vague – What makes an authority transparent? How is transparency evaluated? Who needs to be evaluated? These questions have been left unanswered. What is the commitment?
Defining criteria for evaluating transparency in public authorities. The criteria will include references to the types of media that the authorities use, to responses to questions under the Freedom of Information Law, to the degree at which an authority is accessible to the public and more. How will the commitment contribute to solve the public oblem?pr
Defining the criteria will set a norm by which public authorities are to conduct themselves. As soon as the norm is set, public authorities will be required to strive to comply with it. Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?
Transparency: This commitment pertains to government transparency. Fulfilling this commitment means compliance with the norm for transparency in every public authority.
Accountability: Defining transparency criteria will enable authorities and the public to know whether the authorities are fulfilling their commitments with regard to provisions of law and the customary standard of transparency. Additional information
- It will be necessary to define a mechanism for periodic examination of the criteria in order to ensure that they remain relevant.
- Upon defining the criteria, the Government Freedom of Information Unit intends to inculcate them, inter alia, through ongoing examination, publicizing them and rewarding transparency in order to provide positive incentives to comply with the criteria. Milestone Activity with a verifiable deliverable: Formulating a work methodology and a procedure for formulating the criteria
January 2018
February 2018
Inviting the public to offer input
March 2018
March 2018
Conference to review public comments and hold discussions by the transparency team
April 2018
June 2018
Formulating a draft for public comments
July 2018
October 2018 Approval of the defined criteria
October 2018
December 2018

7. Defining criteria for transparency

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan: [23]

The use of the term “transparency” has become popular in recent years. Many public authorities and elected officials declare that they identify with the values of transparency and conduct themselves accordingly. However, the term is ambiguous and vague – what makes an authority transparent? How is transparency evaluated? Who needs to be evaluated? These questions have been left unanswered.

Defining the criteria for transparency will set a norm by which public authorities are to conduct themselves. As soon as the norm is set, public authorities will be required to strive to comply with it.

Milestones

7.1 Formulating a work methodology and a procedure for formulating the criteria

7.2 Inviting the public to offer input

7.3 Conference to review public comments and hold discussions by the transparency team

7.4 Formulating a draft for public comments

7.5 Approval of the defined criteria

Start Date: January 2018

End date: December 2018

Context and Objectives

According to government officials leading Israel’s OGP process, stakeholders currently hold differing notions of the term “transparency,” and the goals of the unified effort it requires are often unclear or unmeasurable. Government officials in charge of OGP have expressed in meetings with CSOs frustration over the gap in expectations regarding past transparency efforts. For instance, is the proactive publication of any piece of data a worthy transparency effort, or would it be considered “data dumping”?

This commitment aims to create a common definition of transparency for all stakeholders involved in Israel’s OGP process (along with other transparency processes). This definition can create criteria against which the level of transparency of different agencies can be evaluated. A better understanding on behalf of agencies of these expectations may encourage the agencies to move forward more readily with the release of information, although this would be an indirect outcome of the commitment. In the short term, the commitment offers CSOs an opportunity to engage with the government in reaching an agreed-upon definition of transparency and its goals, which is relevant to civic participation in itself.

It is not difficult to verify activities carried out to implement this commitment and its outputs by reviewing written materials created through the process. The IRM researchers however do not assess its prospected impact as more than minor. This was also the view expressed by interviewed CSO representatives who spoke in the consultation that leading government officials in charge of the OGP in Israel held. [24] The commitment is mostly academic in nature, and the problem it seeks to solve is not significant enough to in fact impede progress in transparency and open government efforts. Hence the change expected to follow the full implementation of this commitment is minor.

Next steps

The IRM researchers recommend that once the definition is reached, government representatives involved in OGP carry out the suggested outcome of defining transparency and create measurable indicators to grade achievements of different agencies in the transparency field. In addition, this effort should be a one-time effort and not carried further to future action plans.

7. Defining criteria for transparency

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan: [31]

The use of the term “transparency” has become popular in recent years. Many public authorities and elected officials declare that they identify with the values of transparency and conduct themselves accordingly. However, the term is ambiguous and vague – what makes an authority transparent? How is transparency evaluated? Who needs to be evaluated? These questions have been left unanswered.

Defining the criteria for transparency will set a norm by which public authorities are to conduct themselves. As soon as the norm is set, public authorities will be required to strive to comply with it.

Milestones

7.1 Formulating a work methodology and a procedure for formulating the criteria

7.2 Inviting the public to offer input

7.3 Conference to review public comments and hold discussions by the transparency team

7.4 Formulating a draft for public comments

7.5 Approval of the defined criteria

Start Date: January 2018

End date: December 2018

This commitment aimed to create a common definition of transparency for all stakeholders involved in Israel’s OGP process and for other transparency processes. [32] The goal was to have one pre-determined set of indicators, according to which the level of transparency of different agencies can be evaluated.

The implementation of the commitment by the end of the action plan period was substantial, though significantly delayed. Its first three milestones—creating a methodology for the process, inviting the public to offer input, and formulating a draft criterion based on the review of public input—were completed by October 2019. (They were expected to be completed by October 2018 in the action plan.) According to the deputy head of the governmental Freedom of Information Unit in the Ministry of Justice, the delay was caused by the need to contract an external provider to outsource the implementation, which took time. [33]

The methodology was created through consultation with a committee of transparency professionals from within the central and local government as well as academia, think tanks, civil society organizations, and the private company hired for the implementation. It consists of four main indicators for the assessment of an agency’s level of transparency (basic transparency, administrative transparency, budgetary transparency, and extended transparency [beyond legal requirements], each with several sub-indicators). For each indicator, it is suggested to examine the accessibility of the information, its relevance, and its usability. The draft for public commenting was therefore only released early October 2019 on the Ministry of Justice’s website. [34] Given this delayed publication, there is no information available at the time of the writing of this report on the content of the public consultation nor its outcome and steps towards approval of a final set of criteria.

A final set of criteria is yet to be adopted by the relevant government officials, and only then will be put to use in government’s internal assessment mechanisms. Therefore, at this point, this commitment has not led to any changes in measuring government transparency or to public participation in transparency policies.

[31] “Open Government Action Plan for 2018–2019”, Government OCT Authority, pp. 31–33, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Israel_Action-Plan_2017-2019_EN.pdf.

[32] For a more detailed description of the commitment, see “Open Government Action Plan for 2018–2019”, Government OCT Authority, pg. 26, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Israel_Action-Plan_2017-2019_EN.pdf.

[33] Shlomo Bilewsky, phone interview by IRM researcher, 24 October 2019.

[34] The draft can be seen here: “Draft Transparency Index for Public Comments”, Government Freedom of Information Unit, 2 October 2019, available [in Hebrew] at https://www.gov.il/he/departments/news/news-8.