Improving the Quality of Public Hearings (ME0064)

What public problem does the measure address? This measure responds to the problem of the lack of a functional central quality control system for public hearings on draft laws and strategies. The Decree on the Organization and Mode of Work of the State Administration foresees the competence of the Ministry of Public Administration to monitor the quality of conducting public hearings in the preparation of laws and strategies, but a procedure or institutional mechanism for such central quality control has not yet been established. In accordance with the conclusions of the Special Working Group for Public Administration Reform formed between the European Commission and Montenegro, the findings of the SIGMA monitoring report 2021, as well as the Report of the European Commission on Montenegro for 2022,, it is necessary to establish a mechanism for centralized control of the quality of public hearings and determine an institution that would be competent to verify that public hearings on draft legal acts or strategies were held in accordance with adopted standards before submission to the Government for adoption. The standards of public hearings are established in the Law on State Administration and especially in the Decree on the election of representatives of non-governmental organizations to the working bodies of state administration bodies and the conduct of public hearings in the preparation of laws and strategies. While the Law establishes a general obligation to conduct public hearings on draft laws and strategies, as well as exceptions to that obligation (Article 52), the aforementioned Regulation establishes the basic steps and procedures for conducting public hearings and reporting on the results of conducted public hearings, emphasizing the obligation of ministries to, in the initial phase of policy development, publish a report on the results of preliminary consultations, as well as a report on the results of public hearings on draft laws and strategies. The Rules of Procedure of the Government of Montenegro (Article 35) establish a general obligation for all ministries/proposers of legal/strategic and planning documents to submit a report on the public debate they conducted in accordance with the Government Regulation. In the event that the public hearing was not conducted, the Government can return the act and instruct the ministry to conduct a public hearing on it in accordance with the Regulation. In contrast to the central quality control of regulatory impact assessment (RIA), where the Ministry of Finance's competence is established by the Government's Rules of Procedure to give a preliminary opinion on the position of the proposer of the law/strategy that it is not necessary to carry out an RIA, i.e. whether the RIA conducted by the proposer is adequate; there is still no similar obligation of the central quality of public hearings. This leads to uneven, inconsistent control of the implementation of standards of public hearings by competent institutions and may have a negative effect on the motivation of the public to participate in public hearings on draft legal acts and strategic documents. In addition, the Regulation does not provide a comprehensive approach to reporting on the quality of participation in public hearings and does not prescribe the obligation or procedure for preparing annual reports of ministries, i.e. a consolidated report on the implementation of the Regulation prepared by the Ministry of Public Administration. Although the content of the individual report is prescribed, it would be good to expand it with other data that are relevant for monitoring the quality of the participation of the interested public, including the gender dimension of the participants, geographical/regional distribution, etc.

What does this measure entail? The measure includes changes to the normative framework and strengthening the capacity of competent institutions to control the quality of public hearings, as well as monitoring user satisfaction with the results of conducted hearings. Additionally, the measure implies improving the reporting on the steps taken by the line ministry to include different social categories on which the law or strategy may have an impact, and to report on the number of women's organizations that took part during the public debate. Also, evaluation forms for male and female participants will be standardized in such a way as to include gender and other socio-demographic characteristics of male and female respondents. The forms will be filled out immediately after the central round table held during the public hearing, and online after the report from the public hearing is prepared.

In what way does the measure contribute to the solution of the identified public problem? The introduction of the quality control function of conducted public hearings has several goals. First, the goal is to institutionalize the function of the "gatekeeper" or the guardian of the standards of public hearings by amending the Rules of Procedure of the Government. In this way, it will be ensured that the legal and political proposals of the ministries that are not accompanied by the necessary evidence of compliance with the adopted requirements for public hearings do not receive the "green light" and are not sent to the Government session for final approval. Second, a common understanding and a harmonized approach to monitoring the implementation of standards of public hearings by all line ministries will be ensured. Third, timely monitoring of the quality of public hearings, and especially the quality of the content of the reports on conducted public hearings, can improve the overall quality of stakeholder engagement by increasing the importance of systematic collection and analysis of data and feedback received during the public hearing, including a review of accepted and rejected comments. This will enable a more efficient and consistent assessment of the impact of public hearings. Fourth, effective central supervision over the implementation of public hearings will contribute to improving the response of institutions to submitted inputs, which can lead to building the trust of citizens, civil society organizations and other interested parties and show the real impact and benefits of the process of public hearings, and finally, improve greater public participation in the creation politics. A very important fact is that on the basis of the analysis of the shortcomings observed so far in the application of the Regulation, a decision will be made on possible amendments to the Regulation.

Why is this measure relevant in relation to the values promoted through the OGP initiative? Strengthening the central control of the quality of conducted public hearings is of key importance for the consistent application of standards of public hearings among public institutions, but also for the motivation of citizens, civil society organizations and other actors for meaningful participation in the process of creating public policies. Better quality control will also improve the responsibility of public institutions in implementing the established standards of public hearings.

Additional information This measure is complementary to the goals and activities of the Public Administration Reform Strategy 2022-2026, especially activities 5.1.17 (Holding training for officials working on the preparation of laws and strategies on the standards of conducting public consultations in the process of preparing laws and strategies) and 5.1. 18. (Improvement of the report on the application of the Regulation on the selection of representatives of non-governmental organizations and the implementation of public hearings in the process of preparing laws and strategies). The trainings envisaged by the measures of this NAP are aimed primarily at a new program aimed at quality control of public hearings, in contrast to the above-mentioned broader trainings on the standards of public hearings that the Human Resources Administration already conducts. As for the changes on the implementation of the Regulation, this activity is complementary to the above-mentioned activity 5.1.18 from the Public Administration Reform Strategy because it creates preconditions for the sustainability of a different methodology for monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the Regulation. Additionally, the measure is compatible with the goals of sustainable development (References for Goal 16: 'Peace, justice and strong institutions' - 16.6 - Develop efficient, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels; 16.7 - Ensure appropriate, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels).

Budget 19.000 EUR

Activities

2.1. Adopt new Rules of Procedure of the Government of Montenegro Holder: General Secretariat of the Government (GSV) Indicators of activity realization: - new Rules of Procedure of the Government were drafted - The Government's Rules of Procedure recognized the competence of the Ministry of Public Administration to control the quality of public consultations conducted in accordance with the current regulation in 2023 Required financial resources: 4,000 EUR Source of funding: Budget of Montenegro, donor funds, direct support of SIGMA January 2023 - May 2023

2.2. Conduct an analysis of the current application of the Regulation on the election of NGO representatives to the working bodies of state administration bodies and conduct a public discussion in the preparation of laws and strategies, with recommendations for changes and additions in order to eliminate observed deficiencies Holder: Ministry of Public Administration, Directorate for Normative Regulation of the Public Administration System and Harmonization of Regulations Activity realization indicator: prepared analysis with recommendations for possible amendments to the Regulation Required financial resources: EUR 5,000 Source of funding: Budget of Montenegro, donor funds January 2023 - June 2023

2.3. Hold trainings on central quality control of public hearings for all state administration bodies Holder: Directorate for Human Resources in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration, Directorate for Innovation and Openness in Public Administration Activity realization indicator: - Developed a new training program on quality control of public hearings - Two trainings were held in 2023 (30 employees were trained) - Three trainings were held in 2024 (45 employees were trained) Required financial resources: EUR 5,000 Source of funding: Budget of Montenegro, donor funds June 2023 - June 2024

2.4. Conduct regular annual surveys of participants in public hearings in order to examine their satisfaction with the organization, inclusiveness and results of public hearings Holder: Ministry of Public Administration, Directorate for Innovation and Openness in Public Administration Activity realization indicator: - conducted research in 2023 - conducted research in 2024 - created evaluation forms for participants of public hearings in order to measure satisfaction with the quality of public hearings, but also to include gender and other socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. Required financial resources: EUR 5,000 Source of funding: Budget of Montenegro, donor funds June 2023 - June 2024

Action Plan Review

Commitment 2. Improve the monitoring of public hearings

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● This commitment has been clustered as: Participation of citizens (Commitments 1, 2, and 3 of the action plan)

● Potential for results (cluster): Substantial

Commitment cluster 1: Participation of citizens

Lead agencies: Ministry of Public Administration, Parliament of Montenegro

For a complete description of the commitments included in this cluster, see Commitments 1, 2, and 3 in Montenegro’s 2022-2024 action plan here.

Context and objectives:

Under this cluster, the Ministry of Public Administration (MPA) aims to improve the functionality of Montenegro’s e-participation portal, improve public hearings, and educate the public about opportunities to participate in policy-making. Montenegro’s e-participation portal is part of its general e-government portal. [18] The previous action plan (2018-2021) included a commitment to post at least 60 calls for public consultations on the portal annually. While the targets were largely met, the use of the portal by public institutions remained uneven, and the government’s responsiveness to the public did not noticeably improve. [19] From the IRM researcher’s review of the portal, since the beginning of 2023, public institutions have prepared only six reports out of the 22 consultations and only a small number of citizens participated in these consultations.

Civil society points to underlying reasons for limited public participation in Montenegro, including a lack of trust toward government processes, a lack of government outreach to the public, a lack of public knowledge about available participation opportunities, and a lack of meaningful feedback from the government to citizens that would motivate more participation. [20] Stakeholders note that the government often disregards their comments, which disincentivizes them from using the portal. Moreover, an independent expert says that the e-participation portal is not interactive, and participants cannot see each other’s comments during active consultations. [21] The comments, where they exist, are listed in PDF reports.

Under Commitment 1, the MPA will analyze the e-participation portal using international best practices and develop more advanced functionalities based on the findings, including easier submission of comments, and receiving responses from the ministry online. The MPA will also pilot three public hearings using the new functionalities. Commitment 2 involves strengthening the normative framework around public hearings and monitoring user satisfaction with conducted hearings. [22] The commitment also entails reporting on the steps taken by line ministries to include different social groups on which law or strategy may have an impact, and reporting on the number of women's organizations that took part in hearings. Finally, Commitment 3 aims to increase public awareness of the possibilities of participation in policy-making. Its activities include, among others, a national campaign on the possibilities of public participation, workshops on civic activism, a hub for students to research public policies, and informing the public of the possibilities to participate in decision-making through the Parliament’s e-petition platform.

Potential for results: Substantial

By improving the portal’s functionalities (Commitment 1), the MPA could facilitate more participation of citizens, civil society, and other actors when adopting public policies. The new functionalities could lead to better information on the results of consultations, including accepted and unaccepted comments, and improve the responsiveness of public institutions to matters of public interest. Ultimately, this will depend on the actual improvements to the portal, whether more public institutions use the portal, and whether their responses to comments improve. The main added value of this commitment is the comparative analysis of international best practices for e-participation. This implies that the MPA plans to take a more strategic approach to improving online consultations compared to the previous action plan. However, Institut Alternativa is skeptical that new functionalities alone will address the reasons for low participation, such as the limited impact of public consultations on policies and unsatisfactory feedback to CSOs and citizens on their comments and suggestions. [23]

A major problem for public hearings in Montenegro is the lack of oversight by a central government body. According to Institut Alternativa, less than half of all legal acts underwent a public hearing in 2021, even though there is a requirement for hearings to be open for public consultation between 20 and 40 days before the regulation or act can be adopted. [24] Under Commitment 2, the amendments to the government’s Rules of Procedure (initiated at the end of 2022), the MPA will ensure that proposals of ministries that do not comply with the requirements for public hearings are not sent to the government for approval. Given that fewer than half of legal acts currently undergo public hearings, the IRM assesses this commitment as having substantial potential for results. Institut Alternativa believes that this commitment could improve how institutions organize public hearings, potentially making them more impactful on policies. [25] Moreover, the commitment could improve the quality of public hearings, such as through the planned trainings on quality control for state bodies and annual satisfaction surveys of participants. However, annual surveys may not be sufficient to fully understand how satisfied participants were with their involvement in the hearings.

Commitment 3 could improve some of the issues around low public participation in Montenegro, such as digital illiteracy and mistrust of government processes. The sustainability of these activities is difficult to assess, though the modest amount of money allocated to establishing the hub for students may not be proportional to the scope of the activity. A representative of Institut Alternativa mentioned that the MPA previously announced tenders for awareness raising in this area, but these efforts did not lead to lasting results. [26] The representative stressed that the greatest challenge is not a lack of campaigning, but rather the poor functionality of the e-participation portal. Education of citizens alone is unlikely to lead to a rise in participation if it is not accompanied by a cultural shift within public institutions in how they engage citizens.

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation

The major challenges to these commitments are the underlying cultural and institutional barriers among citizens and civil servants that have historically limited public participation. While these commitments may not fully reduce these barriers, they are positive steps forward. Learning from international examples of successful e-participation portals could facilitate improvements to Montenegro’s portal.

With a view toward implementation and potential future steps, the IRM recommends the following:

● Consider legally mandating public institutions to use the portal and encourage them to provide adequate responses to comments. To improve public participation in policy-making, it may be necessary to require public institutions to use the e-participation portal and encourage them to respond to comments and suggestions in a reasonable and timely manner. A good example is Croatia’s e-consultation portal, which is legally mandated for state bodies and actively used by citizens. [27] A major deficiency of Montenegro’s portal is that citizens cannot access comments posted while a consultation is still in progress, and the final reports do not state what the comments were about or who they came from. On Croatia’s portal, users can see each comment in real time, and comments are linked to specific parts of the proposed act. Over 150 consultations have been conducted so far in 2023 on Croatia’s portal, most lasting at least one month. Of the closed consultations, most have an accompanying report with the government’s responses to the comments. After a consultation process is finished, the comments and the government responses can be downloaded in Excel format, and the entire process remains visible on the portal.

● Train and educate civil servants on carrying out online consultations. As mentioned, many underlying reasons for low participation in Montenegro stem from the public administration rather than the public. In addition to educating the public on opportunities to participate, the IRM recommends educating and training civil servants on best practices in carrying out consultations. The MPA could consider partnering with the Regional School of Public Administration (ReSPA) for educating and training Montenegrin civil servants. [28]

● Use the demographic statistics to conduct targeted outreach for future consultations. Commitment 1 calls for gathering “more advanced statistics” on e-consultations, including gender, age, and location of the user. The MPA should use these statistics to ascertain which demographic groups are underrepresented in consultations and focus its engagement on these groups. In addition, government bodies could use social media and paid advertising to target specific demographic groups for consultations.

● Consider a holistic approach to reforming citizen engagement in policy-making, beyond online consultations. Functional improvements to the e-participation portal and awareness raising, though useful, may be insufficient to increase citizen engagement. Montenegro could consider a broader reform of how public institutions engage citizens, going beyond online consultations toward deliberative co-creation of policies. For example, Estonia is changing how its ministries engage citizens in policy-making, after recognizing its online consultation platforms did not facilitate meaningful participation. Estonia has used multiple OGP action plans to develop a new online tool for citizens to track the status of initiatives across the policy cycle and participate in different stages of policy-making. [29] The new system will institutionalize citizen engagement in the policy development process, as active participants or as observers who can track progress and provide comments. [30] Montenegro could consider a similar reform across several action plans, depending on the interest among citizens, civil society, and public institutions. Any future reform should focus on closing the feedback loop for citizens after the adoption of policies, for example by publishing a report on the reasoning behind the inclusion or rejection of recommendations.

● Create a “toolbox” with resources, guidance, and models that public institutions can use when engaging citizens. It may be necessary for public institutions to tailor their methods of consulting citizens, depending on the policy in question or the targeted beneficiaries. The MPA could consider creating a “toolbox” with resources and models of online and offline consultation methods that public institutions can borrow from for their own consultations. For example, Estonia is compiling a toolbox of co-creation methods with guides for implementation (part of its broader reform mentioned above). [31] Estonia’s Government Office updates the toolbox regularly, based on lessons learned from implementing the methods in actual policy-making processes. Similarly, in its 2021-2025 action plan, Latvia is encouraging ministries to adopt different formats for public participation to maintain regular dialogue with partners. [32] Latvia’s commitment involves publishing guidance and models of participation with the aim of improving institutional understanding of innovative participation measures.

● Develop clear guidance for public institutions on meeting the legal requirements for public hearings. As part of its oversight responsibilities (Commitment 2), the MPA could publish clear guidelines for public institutions to meet the legal requirements for public hearings. The guidelines could cover how much time must be allocated to the process, who must attend, what information they are required to publish in advance, and instructions on how to conduct roundtables, forums, and presentations. As with e-participation, it will also be important to provide guidance to the public on how to submit comments, and to public institutions on how to submit responses to remarks made by the public during hearings.

● Link the awareness raising and educational activities to ongoing reforms to increase their scope. Institut Alternativa believes that activities related to educating the public on the possibilities of participating in the creation of public policies (Commitment 3) should be linked to reforms in relevant areas, such as the Cooperation Strategy of State Administration Bodies and Non-Governmental Organizations 2022-2026. [33] Regarding youth participation, Institut Alternativa recommends introducing the topic of citizen participation in schools through the country’s educational reform. [34]