Yesterday (12 May 2016) saw the launch of the UK’s 2016-18 open government action plan at the Prime Minister’s Anti-Corruption Summit. The plan is the product of 18 months of work by the UK Open Government Network, coordinated by Involve, and 12 months of collaboration with government to identify, develop and agree commitments.
Responding to the plan’s launch, OGN steering committee members, including Involve’s Simon Burall and Tim Hughes, stated:
“We welcome the progress made on a number of the OGN’s priorities in this National Action Plan, and particularly endorse the progress on open contracting, beneficial ownership transparency and parliamentary openness. We trust that the shift to a rolling action plan will enable us to add commitments and milestones to continue to increase the ambition and comprehensiveness of the plan over the next two years. There are a number of areas of open government that are important to the OGN that are not included in the plan. These include open budgeting, lobbying transparency and transparency of surveillance. We will continue to push the government to make reforms in these areas.
We commend the collaborative approach taken to develop this action plan, and particularly welcome the partnership with civil society, devolved governments and parliaments. This approach, although challenging at times, has resulted in a stronger set of commitments and will help to drive progress across the UK’s nations.”
The plan already contains some important and ambitious commitments, but it is just the start. Over the course of the next two years, existing commitments will be extended and new commitments added, including from the devolved nations and UK parliaments.
You can read the full plan here
Or see a summary of commitments below.
Summary of commitments