OPEN GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES
OPEN GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES
Introduction
The Greek government has recognized the critical factor of transparency, accountability and citizen engagement to enable the transition to a new public administration model that is looking for new ways to continuously improve the services provided to citizens and enhance e-democracy and e-participation. The government has introduced a set of open government initiatives aiming to introduce significant levels of transparency, accountability and citizen engagement within all levels of the Greek public administration and to establish a new “social contract” between the citizen and the state. In an ever-changing environment, public administration should monitor new circumstances, be flexible and adaptable to the changes and demands of society. Public administration should respond to the needs of citizens and fulfill their expectations. These are the main initiatives that drive the Greek open government strategy and action plan. See more at: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/country/greece
Crowdpolicy Founders, Michael Psallidas and George Karamanolis, were integral parts of the OpenGov Initiatives in Greece for the period 2009-2012, having active participation in more than 30 Public Sector Projects.
Project Details
OpenGov Project
Opengov.gr was initiated by the Greek Prime Minister’s Office in October 2009 and has been designed to serve the principles of transparency, deliberation, collaboration and accountability and includes three initiatives:
- Οpen calls for the recruitment of public administration officials. Top level and mid-level openings in the public sector are available on the Internet. Applications are submitted on-line using a platform available on the opengov.gr website.
- Electronic deliberation. Almost every piece of draft legislation or even policy initiative by the government, are posted in a blog like platform prior to their submission to parliament. Citizens and organisations can post their comments, suggestions and criticisms article-by-article.
- Labs OpenGov. An open innovation initiative that brings together ideas and proposals from citizens, the public and the private sectors. Labs.OpenGov.gr attempts to release the power of decentralised knowledge and explore new ways to tackle modern public administration problems.
Transparency Project
Beginning October 1st, 2010, all government institutions are obliged to upload their acts and decisions on the Internet with special attention to issues of national security and sensitive personal data. Each document is digitally signed and assigned a unique Internet Uploading Number (IUN) certifying that the decision has been uploaded at the “Transparency Portal”. Following the latest legislative initiative (Law 4210/2013) of the Ministry of Administrative Reform and e-Governance, administrative acts and decisions are not valid unless published online.
The main objectives of the Program concern:
- Safeguarding transparency of government actions
- Eliminating corruption by exposing it more easily when it takes place
- Observing legality and good administration
- Reinforcing citizens’ constitutional rights, such as the participation in the Information Society
- Enhancing and modernizing existing publication systems of administrative acts and decisions
- Making of all administrative acts available in formats that are easy to access, navigate and comprehend, regardless of the citizen’s knowledge level of the inner processes of the administration
Open Administration
The open administration initiative is based on the principles of openness, collaboration and accountability aimed at improving the quality of the public services provision through the use of experiences and proposals of any interested individual or business.
E-Governance Law
The law on e–governance was approved by the parliament on 24th of May 2011, the law introduces many innovations, such as the right of citizens to transact with public authorities using ICT’s and forms a robust legislative framework for the use of ICTs throughout the public administration. The law emphasizes on transparency and citizens participation introducing the “issue tracking model” for any citizen issue and the constant evaluation of services provided by the Greek government.
Open GeoData
Geodata.gov.gr is a catalogue and web mapping framework providing open geospatial data to citizens. The service was designed, developed, and maintained by public bodies, and is built exclusively on open source technologies and standards. Geodata.gov.gr is currently one of eleven governmental services worldwide providing open data to citizens. Operating for less than nine months, has succeeded in providing savings of more than 15M euros for the public administration.
Codification of Greek Legislation
The initiative of the Codification of Greek Legislation contains the legislation since the establishment of the Greek state, ie from 1834 to today. It includes laws, ordinances and regulatory decisions and the unique source of information is the Government Gazette. The legislation, together with the related indexes are included in 111 volumes and are categorized in 40 thematic areas.
Illegal Signs
The Illegalsigns project aims to address the problem of uncontrolled large number of illegal outdoor advertisements in Greece based on crowdsourcing and digital communication. All over the country and especially at the centre of Athens and the highways leading to the suburbs there were over 25.000 illegal outdoor advertisements mostly of enormous size on the roofs of the buildings and on the sideways.
Startup Greece
Startup Greece is an information, networking and collaboration space, aimed at creating a new generation of entrepreneurs in Greece. It is supported by the Ministry of Regional Growth and Competitiveness and the Greek Government in collaboration with communities of young entrepreneurs.
Open Infrastructure Initiative
The Open Infrastructure Initiative aims to provide feedback towards the Greek Government in order to promote the usage of open network infrastructures towards the completion of EU’s Digital Agenda 2020 goals and milestones. The Open Infrastructure Initiative focuses on models and techniques which could reduce investment, deployment and operating cost for next generation wired (i.e. fiber to the home-FTTH) and wireless (i.e. LTE) networks.
Open Taxation Initiative
The Open Taxation Data initiative aims to improve the accountability, reduce the bureaucracy and increase the transparency of Greece’s taxation system. As part of the initiative, the General Secretary of Information Systems of Ministry of Finance, has published extensive statistical data from the year 2000 onward. In addition it has made available on a daily basis each regional tax office’s outstanding and has handled cross-checking cases.