Increasing the transparency of public decision-making (EE0066)

Activity 2.2. Increasing the transparency of public decision-making

Based on the open government roadmap, we will implement activities that increase the transparency of policymaking and decision-making processes and increase information accessibility for interest groups.

Problem definition
Most of the state's development plans, laws and public services are created at the initiative of the government, so the ministries have a significant role in shaping science-based policy, evaluating impact of decisions on everyday life and ensuring quality and inclusion in legislation. Interest groups are often included too late, once the draft is already prepared and there is no opportunity for real discussion. Early inclusion at the stage of legislative intent would result in more knowledgeable decisions and save time.

Another problem is that the central government uses seven different information management systems. The systems are interfaced using X-tee and documents are mainly exchanged through DHX, but from the point of view of citizens and interest groups, they are all separate environments. The management systems are also outdated and expensive to maintain. The fragmentation of the systems makes cooperation more difficult, results in duplicating processes and does not support transparent data management or work flow between institutions

Causes of the problem
The open government roadmap describes multiple potential causes, the most relevant of which are:
1. The time, activities and costs necessary for cooperation are not correctly accounted for. Information on planned processes is lacking and participants don't have enough time to provide their input.
2. Information on planned and current processes is lacking, only a narrow, fixed target group is able to participate.
3. Participation is organised as a formal obligation rather than collaboration.
4. Civil servants have a high workload when preparing decisions due to information management and different communication channels; lack of overview of input gathered through coordination stages.
There was no central coordination or unified vision regarding information management system development until 2017. Each government institution has developed and implemented their information management system separately according to their own needs, resources and practice. This results in a plurality of platforms, processes and user interfaces that does not facilitate cooperation between institutions, is complicated to use and increases administrative burden and expenses.

What has been done to solve the problem
- Meetings with interest groups. Since 2021, senior civil servants register their meetings with interest groups and publish the information quarterly. The data is collated by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs onto a dashboard, but there is no convenient and automatic registration environment resulting in inconsistent data quality.
• Coordination practice. In 2024, the share of drafts with approval deadlines under five days decreased (236). The average approval deadline increased from 12 days to 15, allowing for more discussion time.
• Information management system (DHS). There has been an agreement since 2022 for the central government to develop a unified DHS. Preparations were made in 2023-2025: financing, data classification framework, harmonisation of document types; system development began in 2024.
• Register for the declaration of interests. The register managed by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs is accessible through e-MTA. This allows citizens to see public interest declarations, increasing the transparency of the work of civil servants.

Desired result
Solution
The proposed solution would make policymaking and decisions more clear and accessible to the public:
- Information on lobby meetings will be easily accessible, ensuring better quality and visibility of information.
. The Rules for Good Legislative Practice and Legislative Drafting and impact evaluation methodology will be updated in order to make legislation more systematic and understandable.
- A unified state information management system will be created, decreasing duplication, supporting cooperation between institutions and making it easier to publicise information.
- A register for the declaration of interests is developed to make submitting declarations easier for civil servants and viewing them easier for the public. In the future, the same solution can be used to simplify other public services.
• To ensure that information on lobby meetings is provided and publishing is automatised, a unified application will be created for registering meetings.
- The prerequisites for updating the Rules for Good Legislative Practice and Legislative Drafting in order to simplify the rules on legislative intent and impact evaluation, clarify requirements for constitutional analyses, etc. will be established and published for use of relevant parties.
- A unified and modern information management system will be in use in the central government, supporting information lifecycle management in institutions. The system will harmonise work processes, decrease duplication and support data-based, transparent and citizen-centric information management. The centralised information management system will meet modern architectural standards - it will be cloud-based, open-source and unlicensed, allowing for flexible re-use and development in other public sector institutions.
• As stated in the Anti-Corruption Act, the desired result for the development of the register for the declaration of interests is the possibility for civil servants to conveniently submit declarations of their interests and for the public to be able to view them in the eesti.ee environment.

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How will the commitment promote transparency
All the activities increase the transparency of the government and improve citizens' access to information. Automatising the submission and publication of lobby meetings will increase the number of visible meetings and show whose interests are represented in policymaking. The register for declaration of interests will make preventing conflicts of interest clearer and more visible. A centralised information management system provides a unified environment for the managing and publication of documents, allowing them to be partially public and access restrictions to be more flexibly managed. This makes data comparable and more structured and makes implementing the law more efficient.

The Rules for Good Legislative Practice and Legislative Drafting (HÕNTE) are not fully followed in their implementation, which is why the rules will be amended with the goal of implementing them using tools that support relevance and implementation and ensuring clear and relevant requirements that are easier to follow and harder to justify not following. In addition, the rules will support the clarity and transparency of legal acts and make it possible to evaluate the process as well as the quality of the draft.

How will the commitment promote accountability
Making lobby meetings more transparent and creating the register for the declaration of interests will result in a mechanism that can be used to evaluate the independence of decision-makers and the balance of interests. This increases the accountability of policymakers and gives the public the opportunity to demand reasons for the decisions made.

A central information management system unifies the principles of the preparation, preservation and publication of documents, ensuring reliability and access of information. This supports the clarity of accountability and helps to manage the re-organisation of institutions or re-distribution of tasks, maintaining consistency and clear accountability at each stage.

An updated HÕNTE will support a clear and systematic legislative practice, making monitoring and evaluating implementation more transparent for all parties.

How will the commitment promote citizen participation and co-creation
Transparency in lobbying and more accessible declarations of interests will give interest groups a clearer idea of the parties to policymaking and enable them to participate in discussions more fairly.

A central information management system will offer the public a structured access point to documents and decision-making bases of state institutions. If information is reliably managed and published in good time, citizens and interest groups can take part in decision-making processes with more awareness. A unified system enables work flows across institutions, speeding up processes and improving cooperation.

An updated HÕNTE will make requirements more clear to all parties and create the prerequisites for more knowledgeable and equal participation in public processes.

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Milestones
Milestones | Expected outputs | Expected completion date | Lead | Supporting stakeholders
Ensuring that information on lobby meetings is provided, automatising its publication and widening the potential circle | Automatising the publication of lobby meetings and an analysis of monitoring; Terms of reference for an application for registering lobby meetings | 06.2026; 02.2027 | Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs | Government: All ministries, Government Office; CSOS: Transparency International Estonia, Network of Estonian Nonprofit Organizations; Others: -
Updating the Rules for Good Legislative Practice and Legislative Drafting | Establishing the requirements for updating the Rules for Good Legislative Practice and Legislative Drafting (HÕNTE); Updating impact evaluation methodology | 12.2025; 02.2026 | Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs | Government: All ministries, Government Office; CSOS: Representative organisations, interest groups; Others: Chancellery of the Riigikogu, Association of Estonian Cities and Municipalities
Developing and implementing a central information management system (DHS) | Implementing a minimum viable product of the development of a central DHS (one document type in three institutions) | 01.2026 | Ministry of Finance | Government: State Shared Service Centre, Centre of Registers and Information Systems (RIK), IT and Development Centre of the Ministry of the Interior (SMIT), ministries; CSOS: -; Others: National Archives of Estonia, Data Protection Inspectorate
Developing and implementing a central information management system (DHS) | Stage I of developing the central DHS (main functionality) | 12.2026 | |
Developing and implementing a central information management system (DHS) | Stage II of developing the central DHS (archiving, migrating, reporting, interfaces) | 12.2027 | |
Developing a register for the declaration of interests in order to implement the principle of non-duplication of data submissions | Developments of the register can be accessed from the eesti.ee service portal | 06.2026 | Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs | Government: Ministry of Finance; CSOS: -; Others: -