Sweden Results Report 2019-2022

Only one of the four commitments from Sweden’s 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... saw early resultsEarly results refer to concrete changes in government practice related to transparency, citizen participation, and/or public accountability as a result of a commitment’s implementation. OGP’s Inde... from publishing open datasets. There was very limited engagement between government and civil society to oversee development and progress of the action plan. Greater political leadership in open government and ongoing dialogue with civil society could encourage greater 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... in future action plans. Establishing a Multi-Stakeholder ForumRegular dialogue between government and civil society is a core element of OGP participation. It builds trust, promotes joint problem-solving, and empowers civil society to influence the design, imple... to oversee the plan could also encourage full completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... of commitments.

Early Results

This action plan included four commitments, all with a clear focus on 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.... The one noteworthy commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... was to have a national open data action plan for Sweden; the plan was drafted but not adopted, and therefore did not have any early results in opening government. It would have otherwise incorporated ‘open by default’ and ‘open by design’ principles into Swedish law.

The commitment to establish a new open data portal (www.dataportal.se) saw marginal early results as the number of publicly available datasets tripled during the action plan cycle and there were examples of reuse of the data. However, datasets such as public procurement, which are considered a priority for civil society, were not sufficiently addressed by public authorities.[1] While ‘open data by default’ was proposed in the draft national open data strategy, access to high-value datasets such as public procurement may be subject to fees[2] and beneficial ownership data requires e-identification/online identification (which may run counter to the Act on Access to Public Information that states that anyone can request public information anonymously).[3]

Completion

Commitment 2 was fully completed, as the government completed numerous workshops with civil society and launched the open data portal (http://www.dataportal.se), which contains thousands of new datasets. Commitment 1, to develop a national open data action plan, was only partially completed, and actual adoption of the plan did not happen. Commitment 3 also had limited completion, and after the online project to foster pilot activities in data-driven innovation finished, the website was closed down. Commitment 4, to increase collaboration with civil society on open data, was not fully completed because of a lack of sufficient dialogue with civil society.

Participation and Co-Creation

The OGP process in Sweden is coordinated jointly by the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Agency for Digital Government (DIGG), established in 2018 under the authority of the Ministry of Infrastructure.[4] There was no Multi-Stakeholder Forum during both the co-creation and implementation periods of the action plan cycle. During co-creation, there was limited engagement with civil society, and because of a lack of a Multi-Stakeholder Forum and a lack of reasoned response to civil society input, Sweden acted contrary to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) process.[5] During implementation, there were consultations with civil society, but there were no meetings relating to oversight of the action plan. Finally, there is no available repositoryAccess to relevant information is essential for enabling participation and ensuring accountability throughout the OGP process. An OGP repository is an online centralized website, webpage, platform or ... as per the OGP’s Participation and Co-Creation StandardsCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders is at the heart of the OGP process. The Participation and Co-Creation Standards are intended to support this collaboration throug....

Implementation in Context

According to a public official, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed progress on implementation and likely hindered dialogue with civil society.[6] The implementation of the original 2019–2021 action plan was extended to 2022.

The government faced a political crisis in June 2021 after the prime minister was ousted by a no-confidence vote.[7] However, the impact of these political events on the OGP process appears to have been limited. Those in charge of commitments within the administration stayed in office, and there was no notable difference to the already-limited political leadership on open data policy between governments (for example, there was no commitment to adopt the national open data action plan).

An EU directive on open data in the public sector entered into force in July 2019.[8] The directive was an external driver of the change in approach to publishing open data in Sweden.[9] The directive is mentioned in the draft action plan on open data[10] proposed by DIGG (developed as part of Commitment 1). The Lantmäteriet (the Swedish mapping, cadastral and land registration authority) identified 300 datasets to be published in compliance with the EU directive,[11] indicating that Sweden committed in the OGP action plan to do what the country had to do to comply with EU rules. The boost in data release reflects those EU requirements.

[1] Despite a public procurementTransparency in the procurement process can help combat corruption and waste that plagues a significant portion of public procurement budgets globally. Technical specifications: Commitments that aim t... law passed in 2019, there is still no centralized public database for public procurement in Sweden.

[2] A problem mentioned by all interviewees. Lotta Rydstrom, 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 International Sweden, interview by the IRM, 6 February 2023; Sumbat Daniel Sarkis, OGP point of contact, interview by the IRM, 24 October 2022; Pierre Mesure, Civic Tech Sweden, interview by the IRM, 20 January 2023; Ulrika Domellöf Mattsson and Kristine Ulander, DIGG, interview by the IRM, 28 November 2022; Mattias Axell, Open Knowledge Sweden, interview by the IRM, 6 February 2023.

[3] Lotta Rydstrom, Transparency International Sweden, in email correspondance with the IRM, 6 April 2023.

[4] After the end of this action plan cycle, responsibility for the OGP process moved to the Division on Public Administration within the Ministry of Finance.

[5] IRM, “Sweden Design Report 2019-2021”, 4 January 2021, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/sweden-design-report-2019-2021/.

[6] Sumbat Daniel Sarkis, OGP point of contact, interview by the IRM, 24 October 2022.

[7] Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson, “Swedish PM Lofven ousted by parliament in no-confidence vote,” Reuters, 21June 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-pm-brink-parliament-readies-monday-no-confidence-vote-2021-06-21/.

[8] “Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on open data and the re-use of public sector information (recast),” European Commission, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1561563110433&uri=CELEX:32019L1024.

[9] Pierre Mesure, Civic Tech Sweden, interview by the IRM, 20 January 2023.

[10]Förslag till handlingsplan för tillgängliggörande och vidareutnyttjande av öppna data[Proposal for an action plan for making available and reusing open data], Agency for Digital Government, https://www.digg.se/download/18.79c61f7c17db5871992f0b0/1647952779652/handli%20ngsplan-oppna-data.pdf.

[11] Alina Ostling (Open Knowledge Sweden), open letter, 1 November 2021, https ://okfn.se/2021/11/01/open-letter-open-data-priorities-in-sweden/.