Open Government Foundations

Establish a law to manage the storage and retrieval of physical and electronic government records, including requirements related to how long information can be retained and oversight authority for records management. Ensuring that information is correctly stored and easy to retrieve is necessary to implement an RTI law.

Establish an RTI law in line with the most current standards, as outlined in the Guidance and Standards section below.

Require the collection and publication of RTI performance information in open data format. Efforts can include mandates to collect and publish the following data for each authority covered by the RTI law.

• Data on the number of requests submitted and processed, how long it took the relevant government agency or agencies to respond to requests, request disposition, reasons for denial, and appeals against RTI decisions and their results.
• Data that follows a standardized, validated reporting method in a structured data format on an open platform.
• Disaggregated data on requestors, such as by gender, where appropriate.
• Standardized reports summarizing each agency’s RTI performance.
• Anonymized, request-level data of the actual information requested and the disposition of those requests at regular, periodic intervals.

Establish a body (or give powers to existing inspectorates or ombudsman offices) that can review cases, policies, and practices based on individual requests or denials, failures to report, and patterns of denial. This can also be done through an executive order or an administrative regulation.

• Ensure appellate processes allow for individual appeals of denial of information.
• Such bodies may publicly publish summaries of agency-level reports and make recommendations to chief administrators.
• An oversight body can also enforce any proactive disclosure requirements that are included in the RTI law.
• Establish criteria for composition that considers a diversity of sectors and experiences, including across gender, age, and other representative demographics.

Commit regular funding to the RTI oversight body, and ensure that the body is fully staffed to fulfill its mandate and maintain independence.

Establish a professional track for RTI professionals within agencies, and create professional certificates for relevant data management (where possible) to raise the effectiveness of RTI compliance as an accountability measure.

Regularly report to the public and the legislative branch on agency or department compliance with the RTI law.

Create request-sharing requirements and systems. In some cases, people make legitimate requests, but to the wrong authority. Governments can establish standardized request-forwarding processes to ensure that requests arrive in the right place.

• These systems will allow for common rerouting of requests filed to the wrong authority, and more standardized tracking and reporting. Doing so would lessen the administrative burden and make the final release of RTI performance data much easier.

Require the following elements to ensure data is accessible and usable by the general public. Successful examples include RTI performance databases in the Dominican Republic and Uruguay.

• Proactive and frequent disclosure of RTI performance data that is published online, free of charge, and in a timely manner.
• Machine-readable data published in non-proprietary formats that is also bulk-downloadable, so the public can access data for monitoring and accountability purposes.
• Public validation function to allow the public to flag data that may need further validation or correction.
• Gender-disaggregated data on requests and appeals, as appropriate.

Standardize data and introduce common identifiers for key elements (such as agency names) that may be used in other important data, such as budgeting or spending data. Common identifiers can reduce the administrative burden of tracking RTI by relying on other validated databases and can allow for comparison across time and levels of government.

• Across time: Make performance data consistent and comparable across requests and over the years by ensuring continuity of key indicators across years. This can help identify major changes in performance over time.
• Across localities and agencies: Encourage (or mandate, if possible) government entities to use similar fields where comparison is possible through the production of guidance, appropriate validation methods, and incentives for standardization.

Create and enforce special measures to ensure that all persons, particularly the most vulnerable or marginalized, can benefit from the right to information. Such measures include accommodations for those who may have trouble accessing online systems, such as people living in rural areas with limited internet access or people with disabilities. For example, the Philippines focused on increasing RTI ordinances at the local level, which led to a considerable expansion of public access to information, including in rural areas.

Establish or enhance an advisory group to include RTI users (including journalists, industry, and civil society organizations) and government information producers. Ensure that the advisory group solicits, combines, and gives feedback on the quality of compliance reporting and recommends solutions revealed by data from agencies.

Provide adequate training to all relevant public officials, especially information officers, on record-keeping practices, how to respond in a proper and timely manner, the use of standardized data, and the timely provision of information and appropriate use of exemptions.

Create a campaign to increase the public’s awareness of the right to information, including guidance on how to submit information requests.

• Raise awareness of the benefits of RTI performance data through public education campaigns, especially where there is a high level of understanding and use of the right to information.

Provide education opportunities, grants, and support to data intermediaries (such as CSOs or local legal clinics) that use the RTI system.

Establish or strengthen the right to information commission, including by assuring funding, to ensure independence and maximal disclosure, especially in high-value areas of government activity.

• Empower RTI commissions (or their equivalent) to investigate irregularities and patterns of practice as reflected in performance data and to independently report their findings to the legislature and the public.
• Allow independent oversight to conduct on-site inspections and impose sanctions for non-compliance.
• Create tribunals with the mandate and capacity to review irregularities and patterns of practice.

Ensure that non-reporting, falsification, and misrepresentation of data has adequate, publicly accessible avenues of redress and remedy, if they do not already exist.

Hold standing or ad hoc committees and legislative hearings to oversee the performance of the RTI law and ensure agencies are complying with the RTI law.