A new dawn for open government in Italy?

The last couple of months have been quite an interesting time for those advocating for open government in Italy.

The Italian government officially began participating in OGP in September 2011 and developed its first two-year 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... in early 2012 which has been recently reviewed by the IRM. Italy’s action plan was highly ambitious and included several commitments with high transformative potential ranging from open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... and anti-corruption laws to 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 platforms and public consultation tools. However, only 3 out of 16 commitments were completed and consultations were very poor. Unfortunately the process for the new action plan due by April 2014 seems not to take into much consideration the IRM recommendations and several calls from civil society organizations, at least on the need to improve the public consultation process when it comes to develop the national action plan.

Until recently, given the way the OGP process had been handled so far and the impossibility of building a constructive dialogue with the government, the general mood among civil society organizations and advocates was at its lowest level.

A new standard has been set

Things suddenly changed last February with the unexpected move of Matteo Renzi, until then mayor of Florence and newly elected leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, who took over the government run by Enrico Letta, member of the same political party.

A few days later, when addressing the Senate before the confidence vote on the 24th of February, Renzi talked about the need for civil servants’ accountability and answerability and making public spending accessible to every citizen. He also added that this would mean not just a Freedom of Information Act, but a revolution in the relationship between citizens and public administration such that citizens can verify day after day, every decision taken by their representatives.

Renzi’s speech sounded like a wake-up call for the political elite and many parts of Italian society accustomed to a “business as usual” mentality, but many analysts were skeptical about his ability to deliver such a radical change.

On the 20th of March I was invited to present the IRM Italy progress report’s findings at the Personal Democracy Media’s event in the Italian Parliament and I could witness first hand that skepticism. As confirmed by many of those who attended it, open government principles and initiatives have been slowly gaining attention but struggled to be part of the debate about governance let alone the political agenda.

However, much to everyone’s surprise, on 24th of April the Prime Minister kept his promise to allow the public to monitor every penny spent by the government by declaring to open up the Information System on Operations of the Public Bodies (SIOPE) which provides the Ministry of Economy and Finance with detailed information on the transactions, payments and collections, made by every Public Administration body. No deadline for the adoption of the related implementing policies and procedures has yet been set but the declaration sounds like a turning point.

Challenges are still huge

The decision to open up SIOPE is important not only for the information it would provide to the public but because it set a new standard for future open government initiatives whose need has never been higher. As revealed by a series of national and international reports, Italy lags behind in many areas of transparency and accountability, anti-corruption and digital innovation.

A monitoring study of the digital agenda carried out by the Department for Transport and published by Italian Parliament revealed that two years after its inception AGID, the government’s agency established to foster digital innovation and competitiveness at national level, has not delivered almost 70% of its commitments.

Italy dropped 8 positions in the latest rankings of the ‘Global Information Technology Report’ of the World Economic Forum, mainly due to the persistent weaknesses in the political and regulatory environment and in its innovation system that hinders the country’s capacity to fully leverage ICTs to boost innovation and competitiveness.

Italians still need to pay the most inequitable taxPlacing transparency, accountability, and participation at the center of tax policy can ensure that burdens are distributed equitably across society. Technical specifications: Commitments related to c...: corruption. It is so widespread that it risks affecting the right to equality and non-discrimination in the provision of public services. As part of its action plan Italy adopted a new anti-corruption law in November 2012 including prevention measures aiming to improve transparency within the public administration and the political elites. However, despite representing a positive step forward, the new law needs to be accompanied by further accountability tools in order to strengthen the integrity of the public sector.

The recently published European Commission’s anti-corruption report recommends the government to strengthen the integrity regime for elected officials and reinforce the legal and institutional framework on party funding, address the deficiencies of the statute of limitation regime, reinforce the powers and capacity of the National Anti-Corruption Agency and tackle conflicts of interestA key part of anti-corruption involves preventing or revealing conflicts of interest — when a public official is in a position to use public office for personal or private gain. Technical specificat... and asset disclosureAsset declaration laws are an essential safeguard against corruption that require public servants to disclose information on their wealth, possessions, and other interests. Technical specifications: A... of public officials, as well as set up control mechanisms around local and regional public spending.

What has been noticed by many analysts so far is a lack of vision and comprehensive strategy with concrete measures and achievable goals when it comes to tackle such important issues.

The Prime Minister’s latest move raised hope that this would be the turning point for open government in Italy. In fact, without political leadership, several open government initiatives – however promising – cannot live up to their expectations of delivering better services and opportunities for all.

A proper public consultation mechanism is still the missing link in the nascent Italian open government ecosystem that needs to be addressed. The first OGP action plan was developed and implemented without proper stakeholders’ consultation, the second one – due by next week – is yet to be made available to the public which has not been consulted or involved in its development. Things went a little bit better with the G8 Open Data Charter’s action plan whereas the development of open data national guidelines is being carried out behind closed doors, with consultation limited to selected advisers, as revealed by a leak published by Wired Italy. Given the absence of provisions on the criteria for prioritizing and selecting the datasets to release, the magazine has proposed to launch a consultation on the matter on its own website.

Italy might also look to the case of the UK government that apologized for the lack of consultation for the first OGP action plan and then completely changed attitude towards the development of the new one presented in 2013. Why not take a leaf out of the UK’s book?

Many initiatives inside and outside government have yet to prove if in Italy transparency is an idea whose time has come. What is certain is that lack of transparency is a luxury the country cannot afford anymore.