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Aragón, Spain

Accountability and transparency (ESARG0002)

Overview

At-a-Glance

Action Plan: Action plan – Aragón, Spain, 2021 – 2023

Inception Report: Inception Report – Action plan – Aragón, Spain, 2021 – 2023

Commitment Start: Sep 2021
Commitment End: Mar 2023

Institutions involved:

  • Directorate General for Open Government and Social Innovation
  • Directorate General for Open Government and Social Innovation
  • Aragonese Institute of Public Administration
  • Prodigioso Volcán
  • University of Zaragoza
  • General Administration Department for Electronics and the Information Society
  • Documentation section
  • Transparency Units

Primary Policy Area:

Primary Sector:

OGP Value:

  • Access to information
  • Technology and Innovation for Transparency and Accountability

Inception Report Summary

Verifiable: Yes

Relevance to OGP Values: Yes

The commitment is a new regulation, policy, practice or requirement.

The commitment activities is a positive change to a process, practice or policy but will not generate a binding or institutionalized change across government or specific institution(s).

To view the detailed final assessment of this commitment read the End of Commitment Report

Description

Commitment ID

ESARG0002

Commitment Title

Accountability and transparency

Problem

While great efforts are being made to progress in terms of transparency, we cannot settle for merely publishing blocks of information and data sets without communicating with the public in the same registers as they use. The contents of the Transparency Portal and the right of access resolutions are not readily comprehensible and sometimes excessive information leads to disinformation. The contents of the Portal must be brought even closer to the public, using clear communication and graphic resources, tutorials, etc. One good example is the VisualGOB real-time accountability tool, where the goals of the Government’s Plan can be reviewed and assessed based on the three-fold progress agenda (Social, Green and Digital), the seventeen SDGs in the United Nations 2030 Agenda and the ten departments in the executive branch, with a highly intuitive design. VisualGOB must be mainstreamed among the public.

Status quo

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Transparency Portal received a monthly average of 30,000 visits and 134,000 page views. Starting in July 2020, when the COVID-19 health and epidemiological data began to be published daily in Aragon, we moved up to around 300,000 monthly visits and nearly a million page views. The challenge is to ensure that the users who now know about the Portal for its COVID data discover that there is a lot more interesting information to consult and to increase the pre-pandemic statistics by 20% after the pandemic has ended. The number of right of access requests has increased steadily since 2015, currently reaching some 500 requests/year. In 2020, 68.28% of the visits where made using a mobile phone, 27.64% on a computer and the remaining 4.08% via a tablet or other devices, reversing the previous proportion. During its first three months in operation, VisualGOB received 14,000 visits.

Action

The aim is to progress in terms of clear communication and easy reading to make the institutional information in general, and the transparency and participation information in particular, more universal and simpler. To this end, all the information published on the Transparency Portal and the responses to access requests must be written in uncomplicated, clear, direct language, while also meeting all legal requirements. A change in communication culture is needed in order to assist the public in understanding, having a sense of security and being engaged in public activity. To implement this, a clear, rigorous methodology must be in place and most of the organisation must be involved.

In this endeavour, the Transparency Portal in general and the accountability tools in particular (VisualGOB and EARSE) are expected to be brought closer to those individuals still unfamiliar with them, and a 20% increase over the pre-pandemic statistics is expected after the pandemic has ended.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem described above?

The Government of Aragon will offer a Transparency Portal that has been renewed through a process of profound revision of its contents. Information usability will be enhanced for those devices currently most widely used, and infographics, videos, pictograms, etc. will be added in order to display the information in a more visual, summarised manner. Browsability will be simplified to make the search paths more accessible, paying special attention to people with functional diversity. Public employees will undergo cross-disciplinary training in clear communication and in preparing resources, forms and materials that meet the criteria of clear, accessible language. The VisualGOB and EARSE tools will be updated regularly in real time, thus allowing citizens to stay up to date at all times as regards how well the Government of Aragon is meeting its goals and commitments.

What long-term goal as identified in your Open Government Strategy does this commitment relate to?

Transparency and the Right to Know: The right to ask the Government, to access and use data, to receive a response, to understand the Government Plan and to check it.

Primary Policy Area

Open Data, Right to Information

Primary Sector

Cross-sectoral, Public Services (general)

What OGP value is this commitment relevant to?

Access to information We are progressing in the latest challenge for transparency, which is to go from the right to know to the right to understand and learn about the Government’s progress in real time.
Technology and Innovation for Transparency and Accountability We are making progress in improving the usability of the digital tools that we already have, and bring them closer to individuals who are not yet familiar with it, as well as to unpopulated areas.

Milestones

10 Milestones
1

Identifying information needs on the Transparency Portal

Start Date09/2021
End Date03/2023
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete
2

Identifying Transparency Portal contents that require clear communication

Start Date09/2021
End Date03/2023
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete
3

Bringing the Transparency Portal closer to the public (infographics and adaptation)

Start Date09/2021
End Date03/2023
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete
4

Simplifying the browsability of the Transparency Portal to make the search paths more accessible

Start Date09/2021
End Date03/2023
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete
5

Enhancing the usability of the Transparency Portal on the devices in greatest demand by the public (mobile phones and tablets)

Start Date09/2021
End Date03/2023
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete
6

Clear communication training for public employees

Start Date01/2022
End Date03/2023
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete
7

Satisfaction survey for right of access applicants

Start Date03/2022
End Date03/2023
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete
8

Real-time updates to accountability tools

Start Date09/2021
End Date03/2023
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete
9

Bundling VisualGOB as open source software for implementation by third parties

Start Date01/2022
End Date12/2022
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete
10

Course on transparency and information analysis for journalism students

Start Date05/2022
End Date03/2023
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Stuck
  • Finished
  • Incomplete


Commitments

Open Government Partnership