Open Administrative Reconstruction Data (GR0070)

Commitment 6: Open access to data of the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction

Current situation
The information is now covered by Law 4305/2014 on the «Open access and re-use of documents,
information and public sector data, amendment of Law 3448/2006 (Α΄ 57), adaptation of national
legislation to the provisions of Directive 2013/37/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council,
further strengthening of the transparency, regulation of issues regarding the recruitment competition
of the National School of Public Administration and Local Government and other provisions» (Official
Gazette Α’ 237/31.10.2014), with the differentiations provided for under the Directive regarding
libraries, museums and archives, and a specific provisions regarding the protection of cultural
heritage.

Description of Commitment
A wealth of data falling within the scope of Law 4305/2014 is available to the Ministry of
Administrative Reconstruction and its supervised entities and will be made available for re-use in
order to contribute to the development and participation of citizens.

OGP Principles
Access to public information

Implementation entities, stakeholders

Implementation: Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction
Cooperation with supervised entities.

Contact details: Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, Directorate of E-government

Objective
1) Creation of a new open data site with advanced functionalities, screening, scoring and communication
mechanisms with users
2) Integration of new datasets
3) Mobilisation of entities of the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction for data publication
4) Improvement of the quality of datasets
5) Open data release decisions
6) Upgrading of digital applications and provision of additional datasets
7) Creation of new datasets, statistics and reports
8) Further expansion of the open data ecosystem by involving civil society
9) Integration of information of previous phases of the civil servant mobility system

Key milestones - Timetable
Milestone Completion
1) Creation of a new open data site with advanced functionalities,
screening, scoring and communication mechanisms with users
2) Integration of new datasets
3) Mobilisation of entities of the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction for data publication
4) Improvement of the quality of datasets
5) Open data release decisions
6) Upgrading of digital applications and provision of additional datasets
7) Creation of new datasets, statistics and reports
8) Further expansion of the open data ecosystem by involving civil society
9) Integration of information of previous phases of the civil servant mobility system

6. Open access to data of the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction

Main Objective

The published NAP mentions (p. 24) the main objective for this commitment as follows:

"Description of Commitment: A wealth of data falling within the scope of Law 4305/2014 is available to the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction and its supervised entities and will be made available for re-use in order to contribute to the development and participation of citizens."

"Objectives: 1) Creation of a new open data site with advanced functionalities, screening, scoring and communication mechanisms with users

2) Integration of new datasets

3) Mobilisation of entities of the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction for data publication

4) Improvement of the quality of datasets

5) Open data release decisions

6) Upgrading of digital applications and provision of additional datasets

7) Creation of new datasets, statistics and reports

8) Further expansion of the open data ecosystem by involving civil society

9) Integration of information of previous phases of the civil servant mobility system."

Milestones

The published NAP mentions (p. 24-25) the milestones for this commitment as follows:

"1) Creation of a new open data site with advanced functionalities, screening, scoring and communication mechanisms with users

2) Integration of new datasets

3) Mobilisation of entities of the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction for data publication

4) Improvement of the quality of datasets

5) Open data release decisions

6) Upgrading of digital applications and provision of additional datasets

7) Creation of new datasets, statistics and reports

8) Further expansion of the open data ecosystem by involving civil society

9) Integration of information of previous phases of the civil servant mobility system."

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Greece's action plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Greece_Action-Plan_2019-2021_EN.pdf, p.24-25.

Commitment analysis

This commitment aims to publish data held by the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction (MAR) on a new open data website and engage with civil society on open data topics. Given that MAR was dissolved following Greece's government change in 2019 and its portfolio has been transferred mainly to the Ministry of Digital Governance (MDG) with some activities transferred to the Ministry of Interior (MI), the lead ministries for this commitment are currently MDG and MI.

The commitment, if fully implemented, is expected to make available for reuse some more datasets curated by the lead agency and supervised entities and improve the quality of the datasets available for reuse. However, given that the commitment does not make clear how this aim will be achieved, it is not clear that it will meet the commitment objective of responding to the development and participation needs of citizens. Additionally, the commitment is expected to create a new data portal whose functional design will consider the needs of users and allow interaction and involve civil society in the expansion of the public open data ecosystem. The relative significance of these improvements is unclear due to insufficient specificity of the commitment text and milestone language. It is also unclear how far this commitment will change government practice with regard to publishing open data or interacting with civil society for this commitment specifically and in general.

The commitment's text, as it reads in the action plan, is verifiable but does not contain any detail or specificity about the milestones in relation to the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction. The commitment has sufficient relevance to the Access to Information OGP value, as it seeks to disclose more information and improve the quality of the information disclosed to the public. [51] This is one of the few commitments in the action plan that comes somewhat close to civic participation. Milestone 8 can be expected to create opportunities for civil society to be involved in further expansion of the open data ecosystem, but it is unclear what the ecosystem is, how civil society involvement is meant to operate, and whether this involvement is meant to influence decision-making or not. Interview responses provided by MAR [52] mentioned some ideas about working together with civil society and private sector organisations to inform public decisions but no concrete plans to deploy a formal public influence instrument. [53]

Data.gov.gr contains more than 110 open datasets MAR (as former lead ministry) had published as of May 2019. [54] MAR's official website (as former lead institution) [55] contains a published report on MAR's overall electronic government strategy. [56] This report presented open availability of public information as one out of 10 strategic objectives, without however going into implementation guidelines. Of the new lead agencies for this commitment, [57] only the website of MI had published its open data policy and practice as of 2016. [58] This same report also provides an account of open data progress following publication of the relevant law in 2014 and an action plan for 2016.

MDG representatives explained that the data.gov.gr platform includes only basic communication facilities such as contact form, advanced users' room and a satisfaction questionnaire. MDG did not provide a specific rationale for not enhancing the existing data portal. MDG explained that meetings have taken place since the entry into force of Law 43.05/2014, which formed the catalyst for mobilisation of resources to publish data prior to the publication of the action plan. MDG explained that the concept of data quality as machine readability of published datasets was already met by most of the datasets published prior to the fourth action plan and explained that MAR, as the former lead agency of this commitment, had issued one open data release decision prior to publication of the fourth action plan, whereas there were around 180 applications available upon publication of the fourth action plan. MDG did not provide further details on these topics. In terms of civil society involvement in the expansion of the open data ecosystem, MDG explained that prior to publication of the fourth action plan, it had held some discussions with the Federation of Greek Industries. MDG, however, did not mention any plans about continuing these discussions with FGI or other stakeholders.

With respect to the integration of previous phases of the civil servant mobility system, the Ministry of Interior, which inherited this part of the former MAR portfolio, did not provide information on this issue.

In terms of ambition, milestone 1 on a new, more interactive open data site, milestone 6 on web services, and milestone 8 on involvement of civil society constitute an ambition beyond the usual activities of the institution and broader public sector, as institutions do not often update the ability to interact with their websites or web services or involve civil society in decision-making. The remaining milestones and activities do not depart from current practice and, at the same time, do not constitute any step forward beyond what is already mandatory to achieve according to legislation; thus, they are not considered ambitious.

To assess potential impact, some of the feedback provided by the lead agency of this commitment needs to be considered. MDG did not mention taking up some specific experience from implementation of the previous action plan in the design of this commitment or integrating into this commitment feedback from the action plan co-design process given that there were no relevant comments submitted in the online consultation. Concerning the rationale behind choosing datasets to open, MDG did not mention involvement of relevant stakeholders outside the public sector or continuation of relevant discussions with FGI but did mention that datasets with high added value as perceived by MDG would be a factor.

This commitment is coded as having minor potential impact because of the new open data website that will be created to serve the needs of open data users. The commitment also seeks to work with civil society to improve the open data ecosystem overall (albeit remaining imprecise about what this will entail) and will ultimately lead to newly created and better-quality datasets being available to the public. The lack of specificity about how the commitment could be implemented restricts the assessment of the potential impact.

Any improvements to planned implementation need to consider selecting datasets that are relevant to data users and external stakeholders. Non-governmental stakeholder interviews did not reveal specific high-value datasets that they would like to see published through this commitment's implementation. Further desktop research [59] revealed however that public officials' performance, the recruitment process, and salaries were topical issues and that publishing open data related to these could have value in informing the public and could help to improve government processes.

Commitment 6. Open access to data of the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction

• Verifiable: Yes
• Relevant: Yes, access to information

● Potential impact: Minor

● Completion: Not started

● Did it open government? No early results to report yet

The commitment intended to increase the quantity and quality of data publicly available from the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction and supervised entities. It was canceled, according to the OpenGovMonitor, [20] after the 2019 ministerial reorganization eliminated the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction and divided its competences between the Ministry of Digital Governance and the Ministry of Interior.