The New UK Co-Chair: A Call for Opening Governance and Engaging with Civil Society

Written by David Banisar and Alan Hudson. David is Senior Legal Counsel of ARTICLE 19, global campaign for free expression and information in London. Alan leads for ONE, the global campaigning organisation, on 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 and accountability. Opening governance on a global scale is increasingly central to ONE’s agenda. @alanhudson1 @article19law

At the conclusion of the High Level Conference of the Open Government Partnership in Brazil (17-18th April), the baton of leadership will pass to the UK Government as it becomes a co-chair of the initiative. The success or failure of the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More will be determined on the UK’s watch. With the stakes high, a diverse collection of UK-based civil society groups has come together to engage with the UK government. We have diverse interests and expertise – 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... to open governance, from the domestic to the international – but have the common aim of encouraging and supporting the UK Government to apply and promote the principles of the Open Government Partnership and to meet the Prime Minister’s laudable ambitionAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should “stretch government practice beyond its current baseline with respect to key areas of open government.” Ambition captures the po... for the UK to have “the most open and transparent government in the world.”

The UK’s chairmanship is a tremendous opportunity for the UK to promote and encourage open government and governance, domestically and internationally. It is also an ideal opportunity for the UK Government – in full consultation with civil society groups – to revisit its National Action Plan. We commend the UK Government for the role that it has played in the development of the Open Government Partnership.

Domestically however, the focus of the UK Government’s efforts so far has been on open data and there has been little engagement with civil society. Continuing on this path would, we believe, be a mistake and, with the UK as co-chair, would risk undermining the spirit and intent of the Open Government Partnership as a means of governments and civil society working together to enhance governance across the globe.

We look forward to a successful meeting in Brazil and to engaging closely with the UK Government to ensure that the potential of the Open Government Partnership is fulfilled, domestically and internationally. And to helping the UK to meet that potential. The letter to Francis Maude, the Minister of State responsible for the Open Government Partnership is available at http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/3030/en/uk:-letter-on-open-government-partnership