Improving Transparency of Information on Members of Parliament and Their Work (HR0018)

Improvement of the content of the website of the Croatian Parliament Necessary resources: HRK 2 million Implementation indicators: Established technological solution for the website of the Croatian Parliament, such that it includes: regular and timely release of complete data on the voting by members of parliament, overview of voting on laws and acts with total votes and display for each member of parliament with their vote - for plenary sessions, record for the sessions of boards which should contain alphabetical lists of board member names and indications of how they voted, with information on who attending voting and in the case of voting in the manner that one member deposits his vote with the board chairperson, instead of voting during the time of concluding the discussion at the board, it is necessary to state that person's name, if such a case is stated in the record, information on the budget and expenditures of the Croatian Parliament, under information on individual members of parliament, provide insight into the asset record and decision of the Conflict of Interest Commission via a link to the website of the Conflict of Interest Commission (www.sukobinteresa.hr) where the asset records are provided, together with the Commission decision, with the obligatory note that the Parliament is not accountable for the content of that website. Lead institutions: Croatian Parliament Supporting institutions: Conflict of Interest Commission (pertaining to the issue of asset records and decisions on conflict of interest for parliament members) Start date: Not specified, End date: 31 December 2016

9. Improving Transparency of Information on Members of Parliament and Their Work

Commitment Text: 9.1. Improvement of the content of the website of the Croatian Parliament

Necessary resources: HRK 2 million  

Implementation indicators: Established technological solution for the website of the Croatian Parliament, such that it includes:

• regular and timely release of complete data on the voting by members of parliament
• overview of voting on laws and acts with total votes and display for each member of parliament with their vote - for plenary sessions
• record for the sessions of boards which should contain alphabetical lists of board member names and indications of how they voted, with information on who attending voting and in the case of voting in the manner that one member deposits his vote with the board chairperson, instead of voting during the time of concluding the discussion at the board, it is necessary to state that person's name, if such a case is stated in the record
• information on the budget and expenditures of the Croatian Parliament
• under information on individual members of parliament, provide insight into the asset record and decision of the Conflict of Interest Commission via a link to the website of the Conflict of Interest Commission (www.sukobinteresa.hr) where the asset records are provided, together with the Commission decision, with the obligatory note that the Parliament is not accountable for the content of that website.

Lead institutions: Croatian Parliament

Supporting institutions: Conflict of Interest Commission (pertaining to the issue of asset records and decisions on conflict of interest for members of Parliament)

Start date: Not specified   End date: December 2016

Commitment Aim

For the purpose of greater transparency of the Croatian Parliament, this commitment envisaged

steps to improve the Parliament’s website. A significant step forward was to be the publication

of members individual voting records after each plenary session as well as information on the parliamentary budget and expenditures. Furthermore, information about individual members of Parliament, their asset records, and possible conflict-of-interest decisions made by the Conflict of Interest Commission was to be made available on the website.

Status

Midterm: Complete

According to the self-assessment report, the Croatian Parliament already has established webpage technology which includes:

• Regular and timely publication of complete data on MPs’ votes;
• Review of an act’s voting process with total votes expressed for each MP—at the plenary session; and
• Information on the budget and expenditures of the Croatian Parliament.

The report states that the Parliament plans to fulfil the remaining two implementation indicators (publication of all committee meeting minutes and the addition of links to the MP’s assets on the Commission for the Resolution of Conflict of Interest’s webpage) by the end of the action plan implementation period in December 2016.

The IRM researcher found that this commitment describes an activity (the publication of parliamentary information on the parliamentary website) that was already completed before the start of the action plan implementation period and does not represent a “stretch” in government practice. Therefore, while this commitment was evaluated as “complete,” it was found to have no potential impact.  

Did it open government?

Access to information: Did not change

Public accountability: Did not change

For the purpose of greater transparency of the Croatian Parliament, this commitment envisaged steps to improve the Parliament’s website. However, no additional information or changes were made to the parliamentary website, resulting in the commitment not having any impact on opening governmment. The parliamentary website already held all the required information before action plan implementation, excluding the publication of committee meeting minutes and links to the MP’s assets on the Commission for the Resolution of Conflict of Interest’s webpage. According to the draft self-assessment report, conclusions from every committee meeting are published in the committees’ reports, which are then published in real time on the website. The Parliament’s Secretariat states in the report that Croatian citizens are aware that all information on parliamentarians’ assets is published on the website of the Conflict of Interest Commission, making it unnecessary to publish the same information on the website of the Croatian Parliament. As such, this commitment had no potential impact and was not a “stretch” in the existing practice, affecting neither access to information nor public accountability. Additionally, the interviewed stakeholders^{[Note 51: The interviews were conducted in the period from September to October 2015. For more information, see the IRM midterm report.]} found that no actual new improvement was made to the website. For instance, according to the comment sent by GONG in the public consultation phase for the 2014–2015 self-assessment report, this commitment was “not started.”

Carried forward?

The next action has not been drafted or released by the government in accordance with the OGP schedule. The IRM researcher suggests undertaking the following steps to increase the potential impact of the commitment:

• Planning for inclusion of a “legislative footprint” for each MP, linked with lobbying activities in Croatia and in line with the planned preparations regarding legislation on lobbying (see commitment 14); and
• Increasing the Parliament’s budget in order to mitigate the technological constraints for collecting and using available data.