Centralised Publication of Legislative Projects on the Single Gateway Consultare.Gov.Ro (RO0035)

Status quo or problem addressed by the commitment Assessment of the implementation of Law no.52/2003 on transparency of the decision-making process revealed shortcomings in the working practices, and generally, in the activity of public authorities in ensuring a participative / representative decision-making process. Some of the problems identified in public debates and national and international assessments are the lack of uniformization, insufficient communication to the public on initiated consultations and lack of standardization in obtaining citizen feedback. As such, the development of a single government gateway for citizens to find all legislation on debate, is highly necessary. Main objective Increasing the transparency of the decision-making process by streamlining access to the legislative projects on debate. Brief description of commitment By developing the online platform consultare.gov.ro, legislative projects of public institutions will be collected on a single gateway, according to the phases of the process: public consultation, institutional opinion, approval and publication of the official form. Such a gateway would allow citizens to send comments directly to the ministry or agency that is in charge with a particular public consultation. The portal will also be used for consultation on other matters of public interest and, depending on the result of this process, new legislative documents may be initiated. OPG challenge addressed by the commitment Increase public integrity More effectively managing public resources Improving Public Services Relevance This commitment will contribute to increased public integrity by improving citizen participation in the decisionmaking process. Publishing on a single gateway facilitates access to information and allows the institutions to hold public consultations in all phases of the drafting and adoption of public policies. In implementing this commitment, new technologies will be used to improve opportunities of information dissemination, public participation and collaboration. Ambition Publishing on a single government portal: consultare.gov.ro all legislative projects that are subject to Law no. 52/2003 on the transparency of the decisionmaking process in public administration. The portal will allow citizens to send feedback to the ministry or agency that is monitoring the public consultation.

6. Centralized publication of legislative projects on the single gateway consultare.gov.ro

By developing the online platform consultare.gov.ro, legislative projects of public institutions will be collected on a single gateway, according to the phases of the process: public consultation, institutional opinion, approval and publication of the official form. Such a gateway would allow citizens to send comments directly to the ministry or agency that is in charge with a particular public consultation. The portal will also be used for consultation on other matters of public interest. Furthermore, depending on the result of this process, new legislative documents may be initiated.

Main Objective:

Increasing the transparency of the decision-making process by streamlining access to the legislative projects on debate.

Milestones:

• Establish the platform’s functionalities with the methodological assistance of the MCPDC and based on interactions with public authorities and NGOs
• Development of the portal http://consultare.gov.ro
• Launch of the platform and public promotion actions
• Pilot testing on a representative sample of central and local public institutions and authorities
• Drafting and publishing a User Guide for the portal
• Development of a mobile app for the consultation process in central administration

Responsible Institution: Chancellery of the Prime-Minister, later assumed by the Ministry for Public Consultation and Civic Dialogue (MCPDC)

Supporting Institution(s): Secretariat General of the Government (SGG); NGOs with relevant experience and work in this field

Start date: 2016                                                                                 End date: June 2018

Editorial Note: The commitment text is abridged. The full text can be found in the OGP 2016–2018 national action plan.

Commitment Aim

This commitment aimed to publish legislative projects and draft laws on a single online platform consultare.gov.ro where citizens can monitor and track progress and provide feedback on draft laws.

STATUS

Midterm: Substantial

This commitment was substantially completed. GovITHub was tasked with the construction of the platform. [51] The functionalities were made available by the development team under “Despre e-consultare,” as well as the user’s guide. Legislation from all ministries’ websites was manually centralized on the platform and updated weekly, and the platform was successfully piloted on a small sample of public authorities and had more than 2,000 subscribers. Only the mobile application was not developed.

End-of-term: Substantial

The public procurement process necessary for the completion of the mobile application was delayed due to Romania’s late accreditation of the Management Authorities needed to secure the EU funds. [52] Meanwhile, the members of the GovITHub resigned in February 2017, [53] following the government’s adoption of the Emergency Ordinance OUG 13/2017. The public procurement for the completion of Milestone 6 was stopped when the MCPDS was dissolved in January 2018. After the MCPDS was dissolved, the SGG gained the administration rights to the platform and abandoned the completion of Milestone 6 in favor of reconfiguring the platform. [54]

Did it Open Government?

Access to information: Did not change

Civic participation: Did not change

Prior to this commitment, citizens could not easily find legislative information. Until April 2018, the platform was publishing legislative projects and draft laws in a single central online repository. Citizens were thus able to monitor, track progress, and provide feedback on draft laws. According to the SGG representative, the maintenance of the platform was labor-intensive due to the necessity of manual weekly updating, [55] and did not fulfill its intended role—namely that of a sustainable and resilient communication channel between the public and the public authorities. According to an SGG representative, the SGG stopped updating the platform in April 2018, but plans to reconfigure it to allow for better communication. [56] A former member of the GovITHub argued that while redesigning the platform was necessary, the new platform should have been built in a beta version to allow for the necessary prototyping and testing, while ensuring the commitment’s continuation. [57]

Carried forward?

This commitment will be continued in the 2018–2020 national action plan as Commitment 1: “Standardization of practices on public consultation processes.”

[51] GovITHub was a 2016 scholarship project of the Romanian government that sought to attract Romanian IT talent to support the administration. GovITHub would collaborate with the permanent IT staff of the government and their knowledge would spill over. Consequently, GovITHub members were often outsourced to other departments of the administration and mandated them to provide them with fast IT solutions, thereby effectively circumventing cumbersome, lengthy, and expensive public procurement procedures. Many of the GovITHub projects remain operational, though they did not reach full maturity. See Ionut Popa, CivicTech, interview by IRM researcher on 14 November 2018 and Radu Puchiu, former Secretary of State in charge of OGP, interview by IRM researcher on 13 November 2018.

[52] “Trei autoritati de management acreditate de autoritatea de audit”, Fonduri-UE., 13 July 2017, press release available [in Romanian] at https://bit.ly/2VTIRtb.

[53] “Specialiștii IT din GovITHub nu mai colaborează cu Guvernul”, Digi24, 1 February 2017, available [in Romanian] at https://goo.gl/h3oupU.

[54] Madalina Mitroi, SGG, interview by IRM researcher on 6 November 2018.

[55] Madalina Mitroi, SGG, interview by IRM researcher on 6 November 2018. According to her, the SGG staff monitored the state of the public consultations by manually scanning the websites of the central public authorities and of their subordinates on a weekly basis.

[56] Madalina Mitroi, SGG, interview by IRM researcher on 6 November 2018.

[57] Ionut Popa, CivicTech, interview by IRM researcher on 14 November 2018.