Open Provision of Public Sector Critical Data Sets (GR0020)

The commitment pertains to the provision of open data sets, for free, related to areas of taxation, trade and public procurement. No legislative act is required. The main restrictions involve the technical implementation and readiness of stakeholders. Those data sets will be available to open and machine - readable formats through the governmental portal data.gov.gr.
The data sets are:
- Taxation:
o Local tax offices productivity
o Number of tax validations and infringements by geographical breakdown
o Analysis of the central governmental budget by Expense Identification Number o Statistics on financial crime
o Statistics on individuals and legal entities pertaining to VAT and taxes
- Public Procurement:
o Public procurement data sets from the Central Electronic Public Procurement Registry
(http://www.eprocurement.gov.gr)
o Data sets on projects financed by the NSRF, from the monitoring information system of
the NSRF (http://destaerga.gr/)  Commerce:
o Price data from the Observatory of tuition fees ((http://app.gge.gov.gr/) o Data from the business registry ((https://www.businessregistry.gr/):
OGP Values
- For legal entities: VAT Number, Registry id, Company Name, distinctive title, Local business registry Office, Company legal status (active, bankrupt, etc.), headquarters address, postal address, capital allocation, management information, legal representatives, website, e-commerce website.
- Information on the corporate changes: Date and type of change
- Administrative documents: Notices produced by the business registry services
- Private documents: The balance sheets of companies

Commitment 2.7. Open public sector datasets

Commitment Text:

The commitment pertains to the provision of open data sets, for free, related to areas of taxation, trade and public procurement. No legislative act is required. The main restrictions involve the technical implementation and readiness of stakeholders. Those data sets will be available to open and machine - readable formats through the governmental portal data.gov.gr.
The data sets are:

•       2.7.1 Taxation datasets:

o   Local tax offices productivity

o   Number of tax validations and infringements by geographical breakdown

o   Analysis of the central governmental budget by Expense Identification Number

o   Statistics on financial crime

o   Statistics on individuals and legal entities pertaining to VAT and taxes

•       2.7.2 Public Procurement datasets:

o   Public procurement data sets from the Central Electronic Public Procurement
Registry (http://www.eprocurement.gov.gr)

o   Data sets on projects financed by the NSRF, from the monitoring information system of the
NSRF (http://destaerga.gr/)

•       2.7.3 Commerce datasets:

o    Price data from the Observatory of tuition fees (http://app.gge.gov.gr/)

o   Data from the business registry (https://www.businessregistry.gr/):

§  For legal entities: VAT Number, Registry id, Company Name, distinctive title, Local
business registry Office, Company legal status (active, bankrupt, etc.), headquarters
address, postal address, capital allocation, management information, legal
representatives, website, e-commerce website.

§  Information on the corporate changes: Date and type of change

§  Administrative documents: Notices produced by the business registry services

§  Private documents: The balance sheets of companies

Responsible institution: Ministry of Finance

Supporting institution(s): None

Start date: June 2014              End date: March 2016

Commitment Aim:

This commitment seeks to release specifically defined datasets of open data on three Ministry of Finance-related policy areas: taxation, trade, and public procurement. This commitment resulted from an OGP initiative contributed by the Ministry of Finance
and is an extension of the effort to open offshore company data (Commitment 2.6).

Status

Midterm: Not started

Commitment text did not designate responsibility to a Ministry of Finance agency, such as the General Secretariat. This resulted in no implementation progress by the midterm review. Regarding Milestone 2.7.3, the Openwise IRM research team found that a previously published searchable database of tuition fees was available in .xls format on the National Observatory of Athens website.^{[Note 20: See “Fees Observatory General Secretariat of Commerce,”  http://app.gge.gov.gr/. ]} However, there was no information on whether business registry data was publically available. The Openwise IRM research team found Milestone 2.7.3 had limited completion. Since phase one of Milestone 2.7.3 was complete prior to the action plan, and significant work remained to fulfil the goals of the commitment, the Openwise IRM research team believed that the overall implementation of this commitment had not begun.

End of term: Limited

According to the government’s self-assessment text presented as a special table within the third NAP, there is partial progress in Milestone 2.7.2 regarding monthly publishing of public procurement dataset in .pdf format.^{[Note 21: See “Statistics KIMDIS Details,” Promitheus.gov.gr, http://www.eprocurement.gov.gr/webcenter/faces/oracle/webcenter/page/scopedMD/sd0cb90ef_26cf_4703_99d5_1561ceff660f/Page219.jspx?_afrLoop=2461384664956273&wc.contextURL=%2Fspaces%2Fprod_ministry&_adf.ctrl-state=k23rbldzv_4. ]} Additionally, a Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism public dataset became available due to an information system that monitors implementation of the National Strategic Reference Framework (European Funds) concerning progress of funded projects. Regarding Milestone 2.7.1 (publishing taxation datasets), the Openwise IRM research team found no further progress beyond a 2014 table summarizing audits of tax offices.^{[Note 22: See “Objectives – Cumulative: All Departmental Units,” http://www.publicrevenue.gr/kpi/public/target/2014/3/.]}

Did it open government?

Access to information: Marginal

Despite past attempts at improvement, processes for publishing datasets on taxation, public procurement, and commercial activities remain unsystematic. Increased availability of these datasets in machine readable format could be of crucial importance, especially in the context of the Greek financial crisis and regarding fiscal policies. The overall impact of this commitment was marginal due to the limited progress in implementation. However, an NGO, Dianeosis, recently utilised data regarding the implementation of European funded projects within the National Strategic Reference Framework. This NGO produced infographs that were featured in a special broadcast hosted on the private TV channel, SKAI.^{[Note 23: See “European Money in Greece,” diaNEOsis, http://www.dianeosis.org/research/espa/.]} This sets a positive precedent on how evidence-based reporting may be produced and published using open public data.

Carried forward?

The third Greek NAP includes a subset of this commitment’s milestones. Specifically, Commitment 16 acknowledges the fragmented and largely unstructured availability of information regarding publicly funded projects. The commitment seeks to establish a special-purpose website that will offer key performance indicators (KPIs) for the implementation of Public and EU financed projects.