Latvia Action Plan Review 2022-2025

This product consists of an IRM review of Latvia’s 2022-2025 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.... The action plan is made up of six commitments. This review focuses on the strength of the action plan to contribute to implementation and results. For the commitment-by-commitment data see Annex 1. For details regarding the methodology and indicators used by the IRM for this Action Plan Review, see section III. Methodology and IRM Indicators

Overview of the 2022-2025 Action Plan

Latvia’s fifth action plan introduces six commitments that seek to tackle low trust in public institutions through increasing 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 of government actions and introducing innovative civic participation methods nationally and locally. Prioritising efforts to identify and engage groups which are less likely to take part in participatory processes would enhance the results of the action plan.

Latvia’s fifth action plan contains six commitments that aim to improve public trust in institutions by focusing on public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio... and transparency. They aim to strengthen public participation frameworks and engage citizens in decision-making across multiple policy areas, promote engagement with young people, encourage the use of plain and accessible language by government, promote open data usage among the public, and support civic participation in local government.

Commitments 1 and 3 are promising commitments and analysed together in this review. They seek to introduce formal participatory mechanisms, broaden engagement, and develop a culture of participation in government institutions. Commitment 6 is another promising commitment that would implement the introduction of legal requirements for local governments to conduct innovative participation methods, and put into practice the standards and recommendations on using participatory mechanisms that were established in the previous action plan.[1]

The action plan cycle is due to end in 2025, which is a longer timeframe than previous action plans. A civil society representative said this opens the scope for broader and ambitious commitments as well as providing more time for their completion.[2] Some activities in the plan are linked to other strategies, increasing the likelihood for full implementation. The plan builds on previous commitments (Commitment 5, for example, builds on the publication of numerous important datasets from the previous action plan by promoting the use of this, and other, open data), and also addresses recommendations from previous IRM reports to improve opportunities for deliberation and public participation.[3]

The development of Latvia’s action plan involved the public in a broader manner than previously, leading it to deal with citizen priorities, but also miss out on major topic areas that civil society may have otherwise prioritised. For example, a civil society representative expressed disappointment that anti-corruption topics like public procurement transparency were not included in the action plan as in the previous plan.[4] After the launch of the co-creation process at the end of April 2021, the civil society organisation (CSO), Manabalss, hosted a month-long survey to gather citizen input.[5] Anyone from this point who signed up to receive updates was invited to participate at any stage in the co-creation process. In parallel, state institutions submitted their proposals and, for the first time, masters students for Public Administration (University of Latvia) submitted their suggestions (of which one became milestone 4.4).[6] Government and nongovernment stakeholders then discussed the ideas in two working groups (one focused on participation, and the other on transparency),[7] which led to the development of a draft plan that was published on the Single Portal for Development and Harmonisation of Draft Legal Acts (hereinafter – the TAP portal).[8] Civil society stated that they felt there were sufficient opportunities for engagement and public institutions took their input seriously.[9] The TAP portal documents in written form all proposals, amendments, objections and reasoned responses.[10] The Cabinet of Ministers adopted the plan on 14 February 2022.

To enhance the results of Commitments 1 and 3, institutions could consider developing contingencies for non-funded activities to ensure they can be implemented, ensure public access to information on civic dialogue and the rules on public participation, ensure civil society are involved in the design and delivery of training for public officials that complement existing activities, and ensure regular check-in moments with implementing institutions to ensure ongoing implementation of innovative participative mechanisms. Commitments 4 and 5 related to the use of plain language could learn from the recent commitment in the Netherlands to improve government communications and apply plain language to areas including public procurement, as well as an ambitious Finnish commitment which included ongoing training of officials and the inclusion of people with disabilities, the elderly and young people as part of developing and implementing accessible language guidance.[11] 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... 6 which seeks to introduce enhanced transparency and participatory measures at the local level could benefit from active promotion and distribution of support and guidance for institutions about participatory budgeting. It could also benefit from an awareness-raising programme targeting local institutions and citizens about new opportunities for engagement at the local level, and further support oversight of implementation by publishing data on performance indicators on transparency and participation.

Promising Commitments in Latvia’s 2022-2025 Action Plan

The following review looks at Commitments 1, 3 and 6 that the IRM identified as having the potential to realise the most promising results. This review will inform the IRM’s research approach to assess implementation in the Results Report. The IRM Results Report will build on the early identification of potential results from this review to contrast with the outcomes at the end of the implementation period of the action plan. This review also provides an analysis of challenges, opportunities and recommendations to contribute to the learning and implementation process of this action plan.

Commitment 1 on strengthening public participation frameworks and Commitment 3 on increasing dialogue with the public in decision-making processes have substantial potential for results. These commitments are grouped together and analysed in depth as a cluster of promising commitments as they have complimentary objectives and activities. Commitment 6 on promoting public participation in local government is assessed to have substantial potential for results and is also analysed below in depth as a promising commitmentThrough the Action Plan Review, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) recognizes promising commitments that address a policy area that is important to stakeholders or the national context. Pro....

Commitment 2 seeks to promote public participation and focuses on actions with CSOs and young people. The action plan links these activities to Commitments 1 and 3 under the objective of providing meaningful and effective opportunities for public participation in decision-making. However, our Review has not clustered it with Commitments 1 and 3 since the government confirmed Commitment 2 seeks to inform the public of the participation opportunities more efficiently rather than change current practices.[12] For example, activities bringing participatory budgeting principles into schools is primarily about teaching students about the practice. In the longer term, DELNA-Transparency International Latvia hopes this education may lead to young people engaging in participatory budgeting once it is introduced into law for municipalities,[13] but this is not currently envisaged as part of the commitment. Also, engaging in NGO Day (which began in 2009) and re-establishing the YouthRecognizing that investing in youth means investing in a better future, OGP participating governments are creating meaningful opportunities for youth to participate in government processes. Technical ... Saeima (a project of the Latvian Parliament providing young people with an opportunity to learn about how parliament works, and present and defend their ideas) are important for building a broader culture of active citizenship, but largely continue or revitalise existing activities.

The action plan groups together Commitments 4 and 5 under common goals to communicate in plain language and raise awareness of information and data created by institutions. They have modest potential for results as they focus on improving the quality and understandability of government communications rather than publishing new or more information or better-quality data. Actions under Commitment 4 include training public officials and providing resources on using simple language, introducing accessibility principles (stemming from the EU Directive on Web Accessibility 2016/2102) into government communications, and piloting and rolling out the use of plain language across government. The government seeks to promote and explain the use of open data, promote examples of data reuse and improve access to already-available data, as part of actions under Commitment 5. The commitment related to plain language could learn from the recent commitment in the Netherlands to improve government communications by prioritising plain language usage in areas that are most complex or use jargon (such as public procurement), as well as an ambitious Finnish commitment which included ongoing training of officials and the inclusion of people with disabilities, the elderly and young people as part of developing and implementing accessible language guidance.[14]

Table 1. Promising commitments

[1] Open Government Partnership, Latvia Transitional Results Report 2019-2021, Commitment 4, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/latvia-transitional-results-report-2019-2021/

[2] Didzis Melkis (Manabalss), interview by the IRM, 9 August 2022.

[3] Open Government Partnership, IRM Latvia 2019-2021 Design Report, 6 November 2020, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/latvia-design-report-2019-2021/

[4] Inese Taurina and Agnija Birule (DELNA-Transparency International Latvia), interview by the IRM, 28 June 2022.

[5] Manabalss.lv, “‘Ideas’ Open Latvia” (via WayBack Machine website), https://web.archive.org/web/20220119164117/https://atvertalatvija.manabalss.lv/idejas

[6] Inese Kušķe and Zane Legzdiņa-Joja (State Chancellery), interview by the IRM, 16 May 2022.

[7] Working Group on meaningful and effective public participation, Minutes of Zoom meeting: The process of developing Latvia’s Fifth National Open Management Plan, 9 July 2021, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xUrEspkPPAKQocJUVPlY1nGAbRzBMWJY/view; also, description of process here: State Chancellery, Information on the progress of plan development and participation opportunities, 8 May 2021, https://www.mk.gov.lv/lv/media/9350/download

[8] State Chancellery, Single Portal for Development and Harmonisation of Draft Legal Acts (TAP portal), https://tapportals.mk.gov.lv/

[9] Iveta Kažoka (PROVIDUS), interview by the IRM, 23 May 2022.

[10] State Chancellery TAP portal, Latvia’s Fifth National Open Government Action Plan, https://tapportals.mk.gov.lv/legal_acts/bc0aded2-457f-4810-8426-7999bf581311#.

[11] Open Government Partnership, Netherlands: Implement plain language initiatives (NL0044), https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/netherlands/commitments/NL0044/; Open Government Partnership, Finland: Improving Understandability and Inclusion of Government Information (FI0030) https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/finland/commitments/FI0030/.

[12] Zane Legzdiņa-Joja (State Chancellery), interview by the IRM, 17 June 2022.

[13] Inese Taurina and Agnija Birule (DELNA-Transparency International Latvia), interview by the IRM, 28 June 2022; Zane Legzdiņa-Joja (State Chancellery), interview by the IRM, 17 June 2022.

[14] Open Government Partnership, Netherlands: Implement plain language initiatives (NL0044), https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/netherlands/commitments/NL0044/; Open Government Partnership, Finland: Improving Understandability and Inclusion of Government Information (FI0030) https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/finland/commitments/FI0030/.