Plan for Information Management and Publication (NL0056)

Brief Description of the Commitment

The multi-year plan outlines how the Dutch central government will ensure sustainable access to its digital government information. It provides a long-term perspective and outlines the steps to be taken in the short term.

Problem Definition 1. What problem does the commitment aim to address? • Information is difficult to find, and processing information (Wet open overheid – Woo) requests currently requires a lot of time and effort. • The problem (refer to question 2) affects government organizations, government employees, parliament, journalists, and society. It affects these parties in carrying out their work or when requesting information.

2. What are the causes of the problem? • Currently, information from the Dutch central government is often organized and made accessible only when it is requested as part of an information request or when information is transferred to the National Archives after twenty years. As a result, information is difficult to find, and processing information requests, for example, requires a significant amount of time and effort.

Commitment Description

1. What has been done so far to solve the problem? • In 2021, a generic action plan for improving information management, called “Open in Order” (Open op Orde), was developed. This marked the beginning of a major improvement effort.

2. What solution are you proposing? • Solving the problem is not a simple task; it requires a complex change effort that will take significant time and effort from government organizations. This multi-year plan brings together multiple challenges (disclosure, information management), allowing for a comprehensive approach.

3. What results do we want to achieve by implementing this commitment? • We are implementing measures related to knowledge, skills, and capacity of employees, as well as work processes/policies, IT systems, and governance and compliance.

Commitment Analysis

1. How will the commitment promote transparency? By improving information management and disclosure (proactively and upon request), the national government can be more transparent earlier and more effectively, as relevant information can be found and made public more quickly.

2. How will the commitment help foster accountability? By improving information management and disclosure (proactively and upon request), the national government can be held accountable earlier and more effectively, as relevant information can be found and made public more quickly

3. How will the commitment improve citizen participation in defining, implementing, and monitoring solutions? N/A

Commitment Planning (Milestones | Expected Outputs | Expected Completion Date)

Publishing the multiyear plan. (Simultaneously with the plans of other government entities.) | Multi-year plan | Prior to the start of the new parliamentary year (Prinsjesdag 2023).

Annually updating the steps we are taking in the short term and reporting on the progress in the Central Government Annual Report on Operational Management. | Annual updates | Yearly

Action Plan Review

Commitment 5. Multi-year plan for Public Access and Information Management of the Dutch Government

Commitment 5: Multi-year plan for Public Access and Information Management of the Dutch Government (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations)

For a complete description of the commitment, see Commitment 5 of the Netherlands 2023–2027 Action Plan.

Context and objectives

This commitment aims to improve government information management, archiving, and disclosure. It draws on a requirement in the recently introduced Open Government Act (Wet open overheid or “Woo”) that the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science will periodically submit a long-term plan to the parliament on how to improve the creation, organization, preservation, dissolution, and access of digital documents. [1]

On 1 May 2022, Woo replaced the Public Access Act (Wet openbaarheid van bestuur or “Wob”), which introduced important changes to the Netherlands’ freedom of information (FOI) regime. [2] It requires active disclosure of information on the preparation, implementation, enforcement, and evaluation of public policy, previously often disclosed only on request. It provides a shorter response time to information requests and introduces a central platform where this information is made public (open-overheid.nl). [3] Compared to Wob, Woo requests can be sent to a broader range of government entities, including the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Council of Justice, the state councilor, and the national ombudsperson—all of whom must designate a Woo contact person.

Previous Dutch action plans sought to disclose documents under Wob proactively. [4] Under the current commitment, the 2021–2026 Multi-Year Plan for Public Access and Information Management (Meerjarenplan Openbaarheid en Informatiehuishouding) goes further by outlining how the government will ensure sustainable access to digital information under Woo. The commitment also includes annual updates of the multi-year plan and reporting on progress in the Central Government Annual Report on Operational Management.

Potential for results: Substantial

The multi-year plan provides long-term and short-term solutions to address gaps in the government’s ability to manage information and meet transparency obligations under Woo. Although the plan states that the processing times for information requests have decreased since introduction of Woo, [5] Freedom House notes that government agencies often miss deadlines in responding to requests. [6] A study by the Institute for Social Innovation and the Open State Foundation found that since the introduction of Woo, processing times have increased from 161 to 167 days. This reflects continued difficulty for government entities to process requests within the required four weeks, including an additional two weeks for complex or large requests. [7]

Some of the underlying causes of long response times are inadequate ICT infrastructure and inefficient information archiving, [8] including chat messages that can be subject to Woo requests. For instance, in 2023, only a limited number of the prime minister’s online chat messages were archived properly. [9] This makes it important for the government to structure its archiving practices in messenger services and standardize what applications can be used by civil servants. The BZK has developed policies and guidelines on email, chat, and web archiving, which it will continue to develop and implement throughout the multi-year plan.

In addition, the multi-year plan envisages reducing the number of applications used across government entities to make filing and archiving more consistent. Five departments will pilot a tender to purchase and implement an appropriate Content Service Platform in the short term. [10] If new and up-to-date ICT solutions are executed well, the workload and processing times of Woo requests could decrease significantly. Restructuring the government’s ICT infrastructure could help civil servants move from passively responding to requests to proactively publish information legally required by Woo. Proactively disclosing information could also reduce the volume of Woo requests since information might already be publicly available and effectively searchable.

The multi-year plan also includes capacity building measures. One of the generic measures mentioned in the plan is, for example, a learning center where government employees can participate in courses and training on information management. In this context, the plan will put into practice the new civil service oath of office to institutionalize an open and responsive government. In addition, it includes an activity to enhance community management and knowledge sharing. [11] This could help staff know where and what information is stored and what metadata is available.

Through this multi-year plan, the government aims to substantially increase the maturity level of the government’s information management. The BZK sees the change of cabinet as an opportunity to update the working culture and instructions on information management. [12] On the government’s 1 to 4 maturity level scale, there has already been some progress, moving from an average of 1.9 in 2021 to 2.3 in 2023. [13] Ultimately, the goal is to reach a maturity level of 3 or 4. In part, the multi-year plan draws from the Netherlands’ long-term OGP platform, mentioning the OGP action plan as a priority for 2024 and 2025, including collaboration with civil society partners. This OGP commitment complements the multi-year plan to ensure that the plan substantially improves access to information in the Netherlands in practice.

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation

The Multi-Year Plan for Public Disclosure and Information Management could bring important changes to information management and archiving practices in the Dutch administration. Addressing challenges in the ICT infrastructure, processing times, and archiving practices (including chat messages, email, and web) is crucial to complying with Woo requirements. The IRM acknowledges that establishing a state of the art ICT infrastructure could potentially continue beyond the four-year OGP action plan and the multi-year plan. Funding for government organizations’ efforts to improve information management and access to information is €787 million for 2021–2026, while another €627 million will be spent on linked activities after that period. [14] This means the commitment will be financially sustainable during and beyond the action plan period.

The BZK could use the action plan’s refresh period to take stock of the multi-year plan's progress and adjust this commitment's deliverables accordingly. Specifically, the IRM recommends the following steps during implementation:

o Commitment 3 which aims to promote the publication of Woo files according to findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (“FAIR”) principles to make searching for files and searching within files easier. It focuses on raising awareness of the principles among administrative bodies and supporting their implementation. The BZK could track compliance with the principles among administrative bodies through the multi-year plan implementation.

o Commitments 9 and 10 which aim to assess the challenges experienced by Woo users and implementers as well as the processing times for Woo requests. BZK could use the Central Government Annual Report on Operational Management [15] to inform future revisions and actions of the multi-year plan, and incorporate new milestones to implement measures from its reply [16] to the implementation assessment of Woo. [17]

The training mentioned in the multi-year plan could help civil servants better understand the processes and duties. This entails collaboration with educational entities such as secondary and higher vocational education as well as academic institutions, including courses offered free of charge by the learning center. [19] As the Guide to Professionalism in Civil Service addresses obligations to publish information, the IRM recommends collaboration with the team working on Commitment 17as well as a concrete exchange with professionals, such as the National Archives, on the best practices of archivingand needs for the transition of government information and documents. The exchange could entail advice on adequate descriptive metadata or guidance on choosing the right data repository methods, which could then be added to the guide.