Publish Data on Use of EU Grant Funding (SK0128)

European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), EEA Financial Mechanism, Norwegianthe Financial Mechanism, the Swiss Financial Mechanism and other departmental grant mechanismsforms one of the essential sources of public finance used by local governments, entrepreneurs and othersnon-profit organizations. In order to increase transparency and access to informationon Public Sources a specific web was created in the Central Portal of Public Administration in 2016page and application subsidy scheme module. The purpose of this web application is to provideinformation to citizens, professionals, civil society and officialsdifferent financial mechanisms.

Ministries, the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic and IPOII are obliged to provide data on all one-way routescontributions (subsidies, subsidies, non-repayable financial contributions ...) to the subsidy schemes module onceper year, always for the previous calendar year according to their individual possibilities, respectively.information available to them within individual grants. Although the ambition of the subsidy scheme modulethey were high, but they have not been fulfilled so far for a number of reasons.

To improve the disclosure of information on subsidies provided by individual ministries,It is desirable to carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of disclosure by the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic and IPOIIinformation in the subsidy scheme and published data module, from which recommendations forrelevant institutions towards improving the quality of the data provided, but also for the application suppliertowards improving the use and use of the app. Quantitative analysis will bring knowledgeon the consistency of disclosure of information on subsidies to individual ministries, the Office of the GovernmentSR and IPO on the subsidy schemes module, on their websites and in their annual reports. The aimqualitative analysis will focus on application functionality, user use or technicalinterconnection with subsidy registration systems.

Specific milestones towards the goal:
6. To carry out a quantitative analysis of the disclosure of information in the subsidy schemes module
Deadline: 30 April 2020
Responsible: Government Plenipotentiary for Civil Society Development

7. Carry out a qualitative analysis of the state of the subsidy schemes module, including proposals for improvement
Deadline: 30 June 2020
Responsible: Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic for investments and informatisation

Ongoing role in the topic of open information, still ongoing from Government Resolution no. 104/2017 jelisted in Annex no. 1.3

3. Publish data on the use of the EEA funds and subsidies  

Main Objective

“Regularly disclose data on the use of funds provided by the Ministries, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Investment and Informatization and the Government Office within the EEA Financial Mechanism, the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, the Swiss Financial Mechanism and subsidy schemes from the state budget.” [30]

Milestones

1. Conduct a quantitative analysis of information published in the Subsidy Scheme Module.
2. Conduct a qualitative analysis of the Subsidy Scheme Module system and propose recommendations for improvement.

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Slovakia’s action plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/slovakia-action-plan-2019-2021/.

Commitment Analysis

This commitment aims to evaluate and propose recommendations to improve the implementation of the Subsidy Scheme Module online portal (Modul dotačných schém in Slovak), referred to as the EU Funds and Subsidies Data Portal in previous IRM reports. The portal was first launched in 2015 following commitments in Slovakia’s first and second action plans. [31]   

The commitment is not relevant to OGP values as it does not commit to publishing more information or data, nor seek to establish civic participation in a decision-making process, nor will it create mechanisms for public accountability.

Civil society interviewees in previous IRM reports have questioned whether further investments in the portal are reasonable as the awareness and use of the portal among investigative journalists and civil society remain very low. [32] According to representatives of the Office of the Plenipotentiary [33] the portal was supposed to accumulate all information related to the EU and EEA funds and subsidies. They mentioned that the data management of the portal is inefficient and often entails too many intermediaries (including themselves and the National Agency for Network and Electronic Services), which also explains why some agencies (e.g., Ministry of Culture) publish this data on alternative platforms, such as the national open data portal data.gov.sk. After the portal was launched, it faced major criticism from anti-corruption CSOs and investigative journalists who argued that the quality of data was poor and the format inconsistent to the extent that it was unusable as a source of information. [34] The third action plan [35] then committed to defining minimum standards for publication on the portal to improve data quality and format. Although these standards were set in June 2017, the quality of data has still differed from agency to agency, and in some cases, remained problematic. While the main aim of the portal in previous plans was to increase access to information on the use of EU funds and subsidies, the portal has only had a marginal effect on opening up government. [36]       

The future of the portal is yet to be decided. [37] As a basis for such a decision, the Office of the Plenipotentiary and National Agency for Network and Electronic Services will conduct a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the portal and propose recommendations. [38] As the Office of the Plenipotentiary regularly publishes its outputs, there is reason to expect that the analyses will be publicly available. However, given how reluctantly the portal was received in the past by experts, the analyses are unlikely to have any major impact on the portal itself nor on improving access to information on EU and EEA subsidies more broadly. There are other state platforms, including the national open data portal, where this data could be published more effectively and reach a much larger target audience. At this point, it seems that the Office of the Plenipotentiary is on the same page with CSOs and favors the option to publish the data on other platforms. Therefore, it is questionable whether resources should have been used on the analyses of the platform that is unlikely to be modified anyway. A civil society interviewee [39] argued the modification of the Subsidy Scheme Module online portal would have to be major to meet the needs of investigative journalists or civil society.                   

3. Publish data on the use of the EEA funds and subsidies

Substantial

The Office of the Plenipotentiary published the qualitative assessment [30] on 9 June 2020, [31] after a two-week public comment period. The analysis compared what data is published on the Subsidy Scheme Module (SSM) online portal to what is published on central government departments’ websites or on the national open data portal, Data.gov.sk. It contained similar findings as previous IRM reports. [32] The analysis concluded that many central departments prefer to publish data on Data.gov.sk more than on the SSM portal. Departments reported that the process for uploading data to the SSM portal is complicated and requires many intermediaries. The analysis also recommended several improvements for the portal, but it remains unclear whether its operator (the National Agency for Network and Electronic Services or “NASES”) will implement them. NASES was expected to produce an additional analysis of the portal, which was supposed to address its technical deficiencies. However, there is no available evidence that NASES authored a comprehensive analysis.

An important outcome related to the publication of the EEA Funds and Subsidies data is that it has become a part of the publication minimum (see Commitment 2). [33] When the Act on Data comes into force, central government departments will be required to publish this data in open formats.