Detailed Open Spending Data (NL0023)

• Municipal Budget and Spending Data for Water in the Netherlands (May 29, 2019)

Since 2015, provincial authorities, water management authorities and local authorities (the municipalities) have made their financial ‘Information for Third Parties’ (IV3) available through Statistics Netherlands/CBS and the website http://www.openspending.nl. It is already apparent that users such as officials, elected representatives, journalists and members of the public would appreciate more information in a greater level of detail. BZK therefore commissioned the Open State Foundation (OSF) to conduct a pilot project in which five local authorities published detailed financial data in a form suitable for reuse. The pilots have been successful: all stakeholders see added value in standardising financial information at this more detailed level.

With financial support from BZK, the Open State Foundation is now working to implement a system in which all provincial authorities, local authorities and water management authorities use a common publication standard. The original ‘detailed open spending data’ programme has been extended to include these various decentral authorities. The Ministry of BZK is supporting the activities as part of the broader approach to open government, and therefore offers a platform through the Open Government Expertise Centre (LEOO; see action point 9).

5. Open about finances: detailed open spending data

Commitment Text:

Since 2015, provincial authorities, water management authorities and local authorities (the municipalities)have made their financial ‘Information for Third Parties’ (IV3) available through Statistics Netherlands/CBS and the website http://www.openspending.nl. BZK commissioned the Open State Foundation (OSF) to conduct pilots, that have been successful: all stakeholders see added value in standardizing financial information at this more detailed level. OSF is now working to implement a system in which all provincial authorities, local authorities and water management authorities use a common publication standard. The original ‘detailed open spending data’ programme has been extended to include these various decentral authorities.

Milestones:

1. A handbook, an instruction video and a promotion video. The handbook will be sent to participating municipalities. The video’s will be made available online on the websites http://openspending.nl/ andwww.open-overheid.nl.

2. Three thematic pilots with local governments, to add context to the detailed open spending data. A minimum of three local governments will participate in the pilots. The pilots will be evaluated in a final report. The results of the pilots will also be published on the website: http://www.openspending.nl/.

3. Two national workshops on ‘Open Spending Data’ (one in 2016 and one 2017).

Responsible institution: Open State Foundation

Supporting institution(s): Provincial authorities, water management authorities, local authorities, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Interprovincial Consultative Committee (IPO), the Federation of Water Management Authorities (UVW) and the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG)

Start date: 1 January 2016 End date: 30 June 2018

Editorial Note: This is a truncated version of the milestone text. For the full commitment text, please see The Netherlands National Action Plan (https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Netherlands_NAP-Appendix_2016-2018_EN_revised-with-changes.pdf)

Context and Objectives

Financial data of all Dutch local governments are available on an aggregated level. This commitment aims to provide more insight on income and expenditure to make Open Spending Detail Data the new standard for financial transparency. Detailed open spending data refers to re-usable spending data, including budgets, annual reports, income, expenditure and revenue of all Dutch municipalities and regional authorities. The lead institutions, Open State Foundation (OSF) and the Quality Institute Dutch Municipality (Kwaliteitsinstituut Nederlandse Gemeenten, KING) XX[Note86: Association of Netherlands Municipalities, vng.nl/onderwerpenindex/dienstverlening-en-informatiebeleid/nieuws/king-heet-vanaf-1-januari-vng-realisatie.]XX, a subdivision of the Dutch umbrella organization of municipalities VNG, will contact and help governments release their detailed financial information on Openspending.nl and will expand functionality and improve user experience of the website.

The commitment involves three milestones: 1) a handbook, an instruction video and a promotion video; 2) three thematic pilots with local governments to add context to open data; 3) two national workshops. All milestones are measurable and have clear end dates and goals. As such, the commitment’s specificity is high. If all governments adopted this standard, it would be a break-through in open spending. The open spending portal was rewarded by OGP in 2016. XX[Note87: Making Transparency Count: The Open Government Awards, opengovpartnership.org/stories/making-transparency-count-open-government-awards.]XX In this evaluation, the IRM researcher focuses on the effect this commitment is likely to have on government practice, not on the strength of the concept. This commitment is assessed as having minor potential impact because it is limited in scale: pursuing three local government pilots is a positive step forward in open spending but is not a transformative change in overall government practice.

This commitment is relevant to the OGP value of access to information by disclosing more detailed spending data and enabling the larger public to find and use them. Although this commitment does not meet the OGP criteria for public accountability, it is a big step forward for investigative journalists and democratically elected council members, who are able to use the disclosed financial information to hold public officials accountable.

Completion

Overall, this commitment is substantially complete and on time. The handbook that was distributed among all municipalities, and is available on request, is comprehensive. It explains exactly how data must be made available according to the standards and how they can be sent to the OSF website. Both the instructional and promotional videos are appealing and clear in presentation, but they are difficult to find. XX[Note88: Open Spending promotional video’s, vimeo.com/187259166,,vimeo.com/187251141.]XX The first of two national workshops was held at the 'How Open Festival.' XX[Note89: How Open Festival, open-overheid.nl/blokkenschema-hoe-open-festival/#rdv-calendar.]XX

OSF has blogged about the progress on open-overheid.nl. XX[Note90: OSF progress blog, open-overheid.nl/open-overheid/actieplan-open-overheid-update-10.]XX One pilot, in the city of Utrecht, is planned to be completed by the end of the year. Location data and context (explanation of what the data mean and imply) will be added to the spending information. XX[Note91: Utrecht Municipality, openspending.nl/utrecht-gemeente/UtrechtBegroting2017batenprogramma/2017/programma.]XX According to the OSF program manager, the program budget of the city of Dordrecht will be disclosed in a newly tested form. The province of Zuid-Holland will, according to the program manager, also participate in a pilot. Though there are no clear results released yet, the researcher finds that this milestone will be at least substantially completed by June 2018.

Next Steps

The IRM researcher recommends this commitment be taken forward into the next action plan, provided that it is modified in the following ways to increase its ambition. The government should consider developing a participatory budgeting interface, such as Decide Madrid, an open source civic technology platform created in 2015. The Municipality of Madrid developed Decide Madrid to enable citizens to propose, deliberate and vote on policies and city projects, and to ensure transparency in various government processes. XX[Note92: Decide Madrid, http://thegovlab.org/beyond-protest-examining-the-decide-madrid-platform-for-public-engagement/]XX The platform uses Consul, a free software for citizen participation. XX[Note93: Consul website, http://consulproject.org/en.]XX

The government should also expand the three pilots with local governments to a nationwide rollout of detailed open spending data. Additionally, CSOs and survey respondents have asked for more contextual information on spending data, such as subsidies.

Commitment 5: Open about finances

Commitment Text:

Since 2015, provincial authorities, water management authorities and local authorities (the municipalities) have made their financial ‘Information for Third Parties’ (IV3) available through Statistics Netherlands/CBS and the website http://www.openspending.nl. BZK commissioned the Open State Foundation (OSF) to conduct pilots, that have been successful: all stakeholders see added value in standardizing financial information at this more detailed level. OSF is now working to implement a system in which all provincial authorities, local authorities and water management authorities use a common publication standard. The original ‘detailed open spending data’ programme has been extended to include these various decentral authorities.

Milestones:

1. A handbook, an instruction video and a promotion video. The handbook will be sent to participating municipalities. The video’s will be made available online on the websites http://openspending.nl/ andwww.open-overheid.nl.
2. Three thematic pilots with local governments, to add context to the detailed open spending data. A minimum of three local governments will participate in the pilots. The pilots will be evaluated in a final report. The results of the pilots will also be published on the website: http://www.openspending.nl/.
3. Two national workshops on ‘Open Spending Data’ (one in 2016 and one 2017).

Editorial Note: This is a truncated version of the milestone text. For the full commitment text, please see the Netherlands national action plan (https://bit.ly/30UBDHL).

Commitment Aim

This commitment aimed to provide more insight on income and expenditure to make Open Spending Detail Data the new standard for financial transparency. The lead institutions assisted local governments to release their detailed financial information on Openspending.nl. The commitment involved three milestones: 1) a handbook, an instruction video, and a promotion video; 2) three thematic pilots with local governments to add context to open data; 3) two national workshops.

Status

Midterm: Substantial

The handbook was distributed among all municipalities, and the instructional and promotional videos are online. The first national workshop was held. The open-spending portal was rewarded by OGP in December 2016.  For more information, please refer to the IRM Netherlands 2016–2017 Progress Report.

End of term: Substantial

OSF received € 25,000 from the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations in order to improve the quality of detailed open spending data, which is the main aim of Milestone 2 that was completed. In the final report on this project, 2017 and 2018, two provinces and five municipalities participated. With this activity, OSF responded to feedback from users that they need more explanatory context to the financial data. In order to be relevant to Right to Challenge and neighborhood budget projects, OSF found that location data also had to be added. Both “lessons learnt” meet CSO and respondents’ wishes reflected in the mid-term report, that stated that the people do not ask for more data but for more information and explanation, so they can use the data. This means that the pilots, though not technically scaled up yet, have been useful for learning. They gave insight to what has to be done in order to upscale the pilots.

Since September 2017, a setback occurred in the roll out of the pilots. In April 2018, OSF concluded that the method that was used in the pilots to publish detailed open-spending data was not scalable. It was labor-intensive and error-prone. The data was not standardized and lacked useful context. Together with interested parties, OSF worked with the Central Bureau of Statistics to find a method to unlock detailed data in a smarter and more structured way so that the scalability and usability of the information increases. [23] At the time of writing, OSF reports in an e-mail to the IRM researcher that a possible solution is expected soon.

A workshop was held on 22 May 2018. [24] The IRM was unable to identify if a second workshop, as stated in the commitment took place.

During the review process for this report, the lead institution noted that a new pilot project would be financed by the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations. This project would address the issues encountered during implementation of this commitment. The new pilot project is led by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and Open State Foundation. [25]

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

Though the participating agencies may have more public data available of a better quality, it is still in a pilot phase, so the extent of changes in government practice are marginal at this time. If the project succeeds and a nation-wide roll out takes place, the results and effects on government practice to disclose financial information could be greater.

Carried Forward?

This commitment is not carried over to the next action plan.